


fallen down (reprise)

by nishiru



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Amélie Lacroix deserves better, Character Study, F/F, Psychological Horror, Slow Burn, Talon fam, Undertale very-loose-not-really-an-AU, Very Slow Burn™ but it will be wORTH IT, it’s also okay if u r not familiar w undertale i promise it still makes sense, journeying into headcanon country....and also widowmaker's mind, overwatch was hinky and i will stand by that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2018-12-20 02:00:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 20,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11910885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nishiru/pseuds/nishiru
Summary: “Go on, love. Might get a bit scary, but I’m with you. All the way.”Amélie Lacroix fell a long time ago, but nobody came. This time someone does; but as Sombra’s plan unfolds, terrible truths come to light. Lena Oxton must confront the ghosts in Overwatch and the shade of the Slipstream, and Amélie must confront her past in the darkest corners of her mind—but neither of them have to do it alone.At the end of it all, not everything goes according to plan, and some things cannot be saved.





	1. fallen down

**Author's Note:**

> As you lay to die beside me, baby  
> 
> 
> On the morning that you came  
> 
> 
> Would you wait for me?  
> 
> 
> \- Fleet Foxes, "Your Protector"

Widowmaker awoke among golden flowers, with no memory at all of how she got there. Only one of these things surprised her.

 _Again, then,_ she thought sourly. She was no stranger to Talon’s…methods. They liked to make sure everything was in working order. Sometimes she’d fall asleep in her room and wake up strapped to a chair, wires in her elbows. But the flowers were new. Usually, it started in a room with a large bed soaked with blood, a cooling corpse lying in the middle, his throat a gaping smile.

The flowers, she decided, could stay.

In this strange cave full of golden flowers, she was alone but for her rifle. The grappling hook was gone and so was the visor. Her left arm and forehead felt too light, as if the ground wasn’t quite solid. But her rifle was all she needed; its weight steadied her. 

Absently, she dusted the golden pollen off the sleek metal as she surveyed her surroundings. It clung to her hands, but it was refreshing to see her skin a colour other than blue, so she let it be.

It was dark, save for the faintest possible light streaming from somewhere above. There was no discernible exit. Perhaps if she still had her grappling hook, she could climb upwards. It would be unpleasant if she lost her rhythm, or her footing, but there had been other pains before, worse pains. Besides, if this was Talon, it wouldn’t even matter. The fourth time they ever did this she had shot herself in the head to make it stop. It hadn’t worked. She’d woken up strapped to a chair. They’d…suggested…alternative courses of action.

What was she supposed to do?

Whatever Talon was testing her for, she was likely failing spectacularly. But at least the flowers were pretty. A gold that managed to glisten, despite the distinct lack of light in the cave. They managed to sway, despite the distinct lack of wind.

No wind.

This was wrong.

Widowmaker looked at the flowers. The flowers looked back. They stopped moving. For one of her too-slow heartbeats everything was still.

Then as one, like hundreds of insects, the flowers twitched.

That was all the warning she got before they erupted from the ground, a moving column of diseased green and thorns. The cave screamed with the sound of scraping. Widowmaker’s breath caught in her throat. Before she could raise her rifle barbed roots barrelled at her from every direction. They lashed and flayed at her, wrapped around her ankle and jerked backwards, slammed her into the ground. The rifle skidded across the cave floor. Another root anchored itself to her other ankle. Then the barbs dug inwards, tunnelled into the bones in her ankles. Widowmaker screamed. Stems like stilettos stabbed through her hands and arms from below, golden flowers exploding into life before wilting just as quickly. But the stems remained. Petals flooded her mouth, her nose—

The flowers were relentless. She could no longer see the cave past the coiling mass of roots, the laughing flowers. The barbs dug in deeper, as if looking for a better grip, and she forgot everything except the pain.

As the flowers dragged her into the ground, Widowmaker wondered if she was being punished. Soon, she stopped thinking anything at all.

 

*

 

Widowmaker woke, her throat seizing around a scream. It was dark. The floor beneath her was soft, downy, and something clung—clung to her fingers—

A noise that was not quite a scream ripped itself from her as she scrambled to her feet and scooped up her rifle. The bones in her ankles ground against each other. A cave. Golden flowers, swaying, staring. Again— 

 _To be expected,_ Widowmaker thought grimly. A new way of dying, nothing more. Then she picked her way carefully and efficiently out of the flowers, towards the cave walls. Distance. It would buy her only a few seconds, but why make things easier for them? She raised her rifle. She would be ready this time.

In this world, it was kill or be killed. One way or another.

“Psst. Whatcha looking at?”

Widowmaker whirled around and the next thing she knew she was pointing her rifle directly at a glowing blue matrix. The girl stood clear of the golden flowers, all spiky hair and orange leggings and _are those yellow crocs, mon dieu, the fashion sense of this one—_

“There you are, love! I almost couldn’t recognise you without you looking at me all disgusted and horrified,” Tracer chirped, completely disregarding the rifle still held level with her chest.

“What are you doing here?” Widowmaker demanded, mind racing. The flowers were new; now, so was Tracer. Was this a distraction? So the flowers could tear her apart the second she forgot about them? Or was Tracer the danger this time? What was Talon doing? What did they want? 

What did they know?

Something must have showed on her face, because Tracer's face did…something, turned soft and unreadable. “Don’t worry, love. You’re safe.”

That was what they said before. It hadn’t been enough then; it wouldn’t be enough now. The only person who could keep her safe was herself. 

Widowmaker pulled the trigger.

She never missed. But in this cave full of strange flowers, she did, and she didn’t, and somehow those two things were one and the same. Tracer had been shot through the accelerator, but the harness was intact, the blue matrix still glowed steadily, and there was no entry wound, no blood. Bewildered, Tracer patted around on her chest.

All those years, the only person she hadn’t been able to hurt was herself. Everyone else fell. Everyone else died. Tracer should be dead. This was new. This was—

There was a roaring in Widowmaker’s head.

“Hey. Hey,” Tracer said, and in a rush of blue and displaced air she was in front of Widowmaker. She grabbed at a cold hand and pressed it to her neck. Widowmaker felt Tracer’s rabbit heart kicking at her palm. “Breathe, love. You’re all right. I promise.”

“Do they have me?” Widowmaker asked in a voice so low Tracer had to lean in to listen. Then Tracer stiffened as the warm barrel of the rifle dug into her stomach, and the cold hand on her neck shifted until it was holding her by the throat—loose, but with the promise of violence. “Are they watching?”

Tracer decided to ignore the gun and the hand at her throat. Not like this was new, really. Practically their handshake at this point. “No. _No_ —I’ve got you. We’ve got you,” she said, then she raised her voice, panicky. “This whole thing was a terrible idea!”

A tremor ran through Widowmaker as the cave took Tracer’s voice and turned it into something else. Then the only thing she could hear was the shrill scrape of roots against solid stone.

 

*

 

 _The programme gives her space. She fills it,_ Winston had explained, tapping furiously at the multitude of screens, still visibly shaken by the flowers. _I can create a door, but I can’t stop her from creating too. This is—this is—_ then he’d broken off, hunching even lower over the keyboards.

 _Distract her,_ Angela had ordered. _Try to keep her calm. We’ll handle the rest._

Except Tracer had no idea how to distract Widowmaker _and_ keep her calm at the same time. Usually when she kept Widowmaker off their backs on missions she did it by annoying the hell out of her with chatter, so, you know, kind of the opposite of calm. Obviously not a good idea. And she could hear that insect-drone, that distorted half-scream starting in the background, so, really not a good idea. Her hands fluttered helplessly. Then the screaming grew louder, and Widowmaker’s face became even more of a mask.

Fuck it, Tracer was gonna do it anyway.

“We saw what happened,” she blurted. “Your vitals were all over the place and Angie was yelling a lot and Winston couldn’t make it stop from the outside, so here I am! Just focus on me, love. You know Angie only eats chocolate if it’s Swiss? I like a good bar every now and then, with fruits and nuts in it. That’s the only way to eat anything nutritious, really! Winston agreed, he likes peanut butter on his bananas, but then Angie sort of got that mom face, and he took it back, the traitor—“

“Chocolate,” Widowmaker echoed. The hand at Tracer’s throat slid to the slide. A caress. The screaming quieted, a muted hum that became disturbing if one listened hard.

Widowmaker had known Angela Ziegler in passing before. After, the doctor had been the one to examine her. And _after,_ on missions, their paths had crossed. She had not known, however, about Angela Ziegler’s chocolate preferences. Nor had she known about the gorilla’s penchant for peanut butter. She had been a wife. She had been a dancer. She had no part in this war, no reason to know any one of them.

This was all wrong for Talon. All those years it had been blood and needles and wires and scalpels. All those times they’d opened up her brain, she knew how their fingers felt. Talon created, but not like this. Chocolate, of all things—it was knowledge she had to already have, and they would pluck it out of her head and make it into something else, the way they made flowers something else. But she hadn’t known. She hadn’t known—

She had shot Tracer. Tracer should be dead. All those years she killed them all, they all fell, they all died, one after another again and again—

The screaming stopped.

Tracer backtracked in the conversation without missing a beat. “Yeah, Angie's very particular. It has to be from this specific region in Switzerland. I didn’t even know chocolate’s got regions, I thought that was you French people and your wine. Thought it’d just be dark chocolate, maybe with, like, alcohol in it or something, because Angie looks like she needs a drink, dealing with us idiots in the field all the time, or maybe fruits and nuts too, since, you know, health—“

“Fruits and nuts,” Widowmaker intoned. Her face was still uncomfortably blank, but the hand at her throat fell away entirely. “I see your taste in shoes extends to your taste in chocolate.”

“Oi, don’t shame me for my life choices,” Tracer retorted. If her voice was this side of too loud—well. Widowmaker wasn’t nonverbal anymore, she was allowed to be relieved. Maybe Tracer’d even forget the sound of her screams when the flowers buried her alive, wouldn’t that be something. “What’s wrong with fruits and nuts, I’d like to know.”

“The principle of it,” Widowmaker said flatly. “There could be more chocolate instead.”

“Best chocolate is more chocolate, huh? I can get behind that.” Tracer smiled, wide and easy. It was the brightest thing in the cave. Then she disappeared and reappeared in a swirl of blue at the far end of the cave, where there was a stone archway when there hadn’t been one before.“Come on, love, let’s get out of here. This place gives me the creeps.”

Widowmaker blinked. Then she carefully made her way through the golden flowers, not stepping on a single one. It took her longer than it should have, but if the flowers were waiting, she would not be the one to spring the trap.

Once she was clear of the flowers, she glanced sharply up at Tracer, expecting—Tracer never had been one for patience, never could stay still. But Tracer’s face was soft and unreadable again, and Widowmaker found that she could not meet her eyes. Instead, she averted her gaze and looked instead into the darkness framed by the stone arch. 

She had a death grip on her rifle. It was the only thing that had stayed the same.

“Am I to keep going?” Widowmaker asked. She meant it to be condescending, mocking, but it came out strangely inflected.

“If you still want to, love.” Tracer peered at her, all big serious eyes and ridiculous hair. “You do whatever you want. If you want to stop, that’s what we’ll do, no question.” 

Widowmaker considered. The flowers were new, but the pain wasn’t, the dying wasn’t. Every time before, despite everything, she lived. 

She would live again.

In answer, she took a step towards the stone arch.

Suddenly the chronal accelerator sputtered and spat. Widowmaker turned. Tracer was _vibrating,_ electric blue, translucent—then she flickered out of sight, as if someone somewhere pulled a plug. Before Widowmaker’s heart could catch up, Tracer flickered back.

“What—“ Widowmaker began, but Tracer interrupted.

“Sweet of you to worry, but no need for that! Won’t be here for long, though. Kind of an emergency thing, this.” Tracer glanced at Widowmaker. She looked too blank, almost lost, and Tracer didn’t like it one bit. So she blinked into Widowmaker’s side, an impromptu side-hug. 

Widowmaker stared down at her. 

“Winston’ll figure something out, I’m sure! You won’t get rid of me that easy." Tracer's voice was immeasurably soft. “Go on, love. Might get a bit scary, but I’m with you. All the way.”

Widowmaker stared at her. And stared, and stared.

Tracer didn’t blink.

Widowmaker did. Once, slow, deliberate. Then she straightened. Let the rifle dip, though she still held it at the ready, and began to walk. 

A few steps into the passageway she realised that it was too quiet, and turned.

Tracer was nowhere to be seen.

Widowmaker exhaled, long and smooth. Her grip on the rifle tightened a fraction. Slowly, mechanically, she turned away.

At her back were golden flowers. At her front was a darkness deeper and more absolute than any she had seen before.

Squaring her shoulders, she allowed the dark to swallow her whole.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope u enjoyed!! my first time posting anything haha scary um there might be more in the future depending on if anyone's interested
> 
> let me know what you thought


	2. start menu

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> how they ended up in this mess to begin with

It hadn’t been until King’s Row that Tracer realised how little Widowmaker actually _spoke._ At the museum Tracer’d been laughing like a maniac, talking nonstop, _psst, whatcha looking at?_ and all she got to show for it was the exasperation on Widowmaker’s face. That happened a lot, actually, the one-sided conversation thing. But it was okay! Tracer had gotten in lots of practice when she’d been lost in the Slipstream and her voice had been the only thing she could—she could talk more than enough for two people, was her point.

Then King’s Row happened, and Widowmaker said, _Looks like the party is over,_ smirking the entire time, just so proud of herself, all _did you see what I did_ in more ways than one. If Tracer hadn’t just watched Mondatta—well, she’d be stunned, because Widowmaker’d just springboarded off her chatter, _trying to crash another party, love?_ even though it’d taken her five minutes to fire off a rejoinder. Gotta work on that. But still! Six words in less than five seconds! A record! Get in!

So. They’d been making some progress, Tracer thought. Then this last mission, in Castillo—like it’d all been erased. Reset.

 

*

 

Their fights had always been violent, but Widowmaker had always been controlled. Not like this—not jerky, mechanical, this side of too vicious, while her face remained utterly blank. Tracer gave as good as she got, but the whole time she was getting her arse handed to her she couldn’t shake the feeling like Widowmaker wasn’t really looking at _her,_ like Widowmaker wasn’t really there. Lights were on, nobody was home. Even with a broken nose and several cracked ribs Tracer was quipping nonstop— _you trying to get me to shut up? Joke’s on you, love! I only get stronger the more you hurt me! Hahaha!! (wheeze)—_ trying to get a reaction, trying to be less worried about Widowmaker and more concerned about staying alive.

Even so, Tracer still had a few tricks up her sleeve. Blinking directly at the wall, she planted both feet solidly. Tossed off a wink and a cheeky salute.

Then she launched herself directly at the sniper and blinked them both off the roof.

Tracer let out a whoop as they fell, the pavement flying up to meet them. Seconds later Widowmaker twisted, sinuous like a cat, and her grapple hook shot out. Their trajectory altered, they crashed through a window on the sixth floor of the adjacent building, landing in a confused tangle of limbs and stinging glass. But it didn't buy her much time; Widowmaker did something impossible and painful-looking with her spine and sprang to her feet faster than she had any right to, her face still terrifyingly blank. Just as Tracer was about to blink away from an incoming blow, the chronal accelerator let out a series of alarming beeps. Purple light bled through the blue. There was no time to panic—Tracer barely turned in time to catch Widowmaker's kick against her shoulder instead of her face, and the force behind it slammed her headfirst into the floor. Christ, those legs, weapons of mass destruction—

Then Widowmaker whirled around just in time to register the “ _Hola"_ and lazy wave before Sombra clocked her hard across the face with a pistol.

As Widowmaker collapsed, Sombra turned to Tracer and pouted. “What, no hello?”

To which Tracer said, very expressively, “What the fuck.”

 

* 

 

“Sorry about the accelerator,” Sombra said, not sounding very sorry at all. “I have to make sure you stay put. You have no idea how much it took for me to arrange this meeting.”

Tracer scrambled to her feet, pulse pistols at the ready. Couldn’t blink or recall like this, she thought grimly, but the chronal accelerator had never been the most interesting thing about her.  Tracer glanced at Widowmaker, lying unconscious between them. She’d never gone down to one hit like that before. This time, Tracer didn’t even try to quash the worry. “The hell was that? I thought you were on the same team!”

Sombra looked offended. _Offended._ Like Tracer’d just fed her teddy bear through a shredder and run it over a couple of times with a jet fighter, or something. “I _am_ on her team. So rude.”

“You just punched her in the face! Who’s rude?”

“She just kicked you in the face. You looked like you were going to thank her for it.” Tracer spluttered, a series of unintelligible British noises. Sombra rolled her eyes. “Whatever. I was watching. I know. This might come as a surprise, but I’m not here to kinkshame you.” She tilted her head at Widowmaker. “You have to take her.”

The incoherent British noises intensified. “What?”

“Is everyone in Overwatch like this?” Sombra asked the ceiling. “No wonder you were disbanded. Let's try that again.” She bent and hoisted Widowmaker’s arm over her neck, staggering under the sniper’s weight. Glared at Tracer. Tracer wondered if she’d been getting lessons from Widowmaker. “A little help would be appreciated.”

 _If this is a trap, Winston’s gonna kill me,_ she thought cheerfully. Then she holstered one of her pistols—like hell was she going to disarm completely—and took Widowmaker’s other arm. Together they hobbled out of the room into a dark corridor. 

The building shook with the force of Winston's roar. The last Tracer'd seen him, he'd been pummelling Reaper into the pavement. Hopefully things were making more sense on his end. Every muscle in Tracer’s body was tensed for fight and flight, in that order.

“You’ve got ten minutes before the power comes back. Then you’re on your own,” Sombra said, before unceremoniously dumping Widowmaker on Tracer.

The ground pitched up towards her as she bore the brunt of Widowmaker’s full weight.  “Funny, kinda feel like I already am,” Tracer snarked. 

Sombra laughed. It wasn’t a nice sound. “Please. You ever wonder what would’ve happened to you if that gorilla hadn’t kept going and figured out how to bring you back? Hmm? Overwatch was out of ideas. Would’ve left you there. Just another pilot. Good one, sure, but there are others. You weren’t even an agent.” Tracer jerked to a stop and stared at her. “Aww, _pobrecita,_ don’t worry, you’re not special. They fucked up shutdown and left those climatologists in Antarctica to die, too. Nine years.” Sombra whistled. “Didn’t even go looking, did they? Ever ask that Mei girl?”

Tracer’s brow furrowed. “What’re you getting at?”

Sombra shrugged. “Just saying. You had a gorilla. Spiderwoman was on her own. And Talon’s hold is too strong for her to give them the finger and get out of there herself. Since everyone else is busy…she’ll have to settle for me.

“I’m not a fan of what they do to her. It’s going to kill her eventually. And it makes her even less fun than she usually is. Won’t even paint my nails now. She’s been acting weird, too. Staring at nothing. It’s happened before, but every time it gets worse.” Then Sombra sidled in close, and slipped a rectangular something into Tracer’s jacket. “Something I made to help. I even put some instructions in there. You can follow instructions, yes?”

 

*

 

Tracer could count on one hand the number of times she had seen Winston look this completely baffled.

“She’s…writing the files. How…” Winston looked to the ceiling and asked, “Is this really happening?”

Angela looked up from where she was checking the electrodes connected to Widowmaker., looking alarmed. The doctor had been working for hours stabilising her new patient, and after how Widowmaker had crashed when the flowers attacked, her nerves were more than a little stretched. “Is something wrong?”

“No, no. Just that—here.” Winston plucked a section of code from the floating holographic screen. Tracer nearly took Winston’s head off blinking up to his shoulder to see.

FILE SAVED. 2:35

“This appeared two minutes and thirty-five seconds after the programme was initialised. According to our records, the flowers appeared three minutes and twenty seconds after initialisation.“

“So the numbers are time, and this bit’s from before the flowers. Gotcha.”

Winston pulled out yet another section of code, further down this time. “This was from five minutes and forty-three seconds after initialisation. When Widowmaker woke up in the cave after the, ah, flower incident.”

FILE ERASED. FILE SAVED. 2:35

“The time didn’t change,” Tracer said. Something cold and familiar curled at the base of her spine and shivered up to her shoulders, her cheeks. “She…she rewound?”

“Something like that. These…files…I think Widowmaker’s actively creating them. Anchor points. I think that’s why she went back after the flowers…” He cleared his throat, shifting uneasily. “Well. She went back to when the first, ah, file was saved. That’s why the time didn’t change when she woke up and laid down another anchor point.” Then Winston peered at Tracer, worried. “Lena? Are you all right?”

“Not gonna lie, this is a little freaky, love,” Tracer laughed. It was shakier than she would’ve liked. “It’s kinda like her personal Slipstream, huh?”

Rewind, try again. Except Widowmaker had to die first to do it.

“Lena….” Angela’s voice was soft.

“I'm right as rain, Angie, don’t you worry about me. I’m not even the one with the murder flowers in my head.” Tracer pasted on a smile. “How’s the thingy looking, Winston?”

Neither of her friends looked very convinced, but they didn’t push. Angela put a gentle hand on Tracer’s shoulder before she busied herself preparing some much-needed tea to settle her nerves. With a swipe, Winston dismissed the highlighted sections of code, and pulled up the schematics of the stabiliser that would allow Tracer to stay in the programme longer, if the need arose. “I’m just about done with it. Athena and I are still going through Sombra’s code, to make sure you will be safe. So far we’ve found no malware, no red flags. She is…incredibly gifted.”

Sombra, Tracer thought irritably, was also the most annoying person she had ever met in her entire life.

“Still,” Winston continued, “I would prefer not to send you into Widowmaker’s head again unless absolutely necessary.“

Angela nodded. “She did shoot you.”

Tracer waved it away. “She does that every time we meet. ‘Sides, she didn’t hurt me.”

“I was wondering about that, actually.” Whenever Winston’s scientist blood was up he spoke slightly louder, faster, and gesticulated expansively. “Either she can’t hurt you, or she can, but somehow didn’t. Perhaps as a—as a gatecrasher, if you will, nothing in the programme can hurt you. Or, if you are not after all exempt from the programme’s laws of physics, perhaps she didn’t really want to hurt you. That would raise interesting questions…perhaps the programme plays on intention….” Almost absently, he began assembling the stabiliser. The sound of tiny metal parts clinking together filled the room.

“It would be best if you stayed out of the programme altogether,” Angela interrupted, nudging the conversation back on track. She cupped her hands around her mug, relishing the warmth. “Who knows what would happen to you out here, if something happened to you in there. Widowmaker crashed when the flowers attacked. If she hadn’t laid down that first anchor before the flowers killed her…perhaps she would already be dead.” Her expression twisted, and the words came pouring out of her, as if they'd been accumulating like sand in her throat from the moment Widowmaker had been brought in. “I cannot imagine what Talon put her through, for her mind to tear her apart with flowers. Sombra was right. We failed her. _I_ failed her. I thought it was shock. Trauma. I should have seen that something was wrong, that she was not the same.”

An uncomfortable silence descended.

“The burden falls on all of us," Winston said at last. "We should have looked for her after we found Gérard Lacroix dead in his home. Simply assuming she was dead...it was a mistake, especially when she had been abducted by Talon just a few weeks before. Even if we did not know what they had done—what they had made her do—Talon showed definite interest. We should have _looked._ But we left her, the same way we left Mei and the others." Then Winston looked at Tracer, eyes heavy with shapeless guilt. "The same way...we left you."

Tracer held his gaze for only a moment before dipping her chin and looking away. She shrugged a shoulder; the movement was a little too jerky to pass for carefree. But the smile didn't slip. "You got me back, big guy," was all she said. "That's all that matters, really."

Then there was only the clinking of metal and the steady hum of the machines hooked up to Widowmaker. Tracer settled in the chair next to the bed, angling herself so neither of her friends could see her face. When she was sure that no one was looking, Tracer let the smile fade. The chronal accelerator felt heavier and more suffocating than usual. Its soft blue glow illuminated the long lines of Widowmaker's body; under its light the pallor of her skin looked almost natural. Widowmaker looked smaller, somehow; a strange bird with strange joints, folded into herself.

They weren’t even friends. Technically, they weren’t even on speaking terms. Widowmaker was just the person who shot at her a lot, the person Tracer went out of her way to talk to. 

It didn’t matter. The moment she'd found that Widowmaker was living some bootlegged version of the Slipstream, the moment she’d seen the flowers on the visual feed—hell, the moment Widowmaker had showed up on that rooftop all blank and silent and fighting all weird, like all those missions, all those conversations (as one-sided as they mostly were) had been erased—there was never a chance that Tracer was going to leave her there on her own.

So Tracer made sure her hands were sandwiched firmly under her bum. Kept her eyes on the visual feed anchored above Widowmaker’s bed, on alert for anything weird. She’d promised, after all. All the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the plot thickens....
> 
> thank you to everyone who left kudos/comments, it really means a lot!! this chapter's a little different, more heavy on set-up, but i hope you still liked it! (this story blindsided me with plot) again, do let me know what you thought
> 
> next chapter might take a little longer, as i'm flying overseas in a few days - but if there's interest, there will be more!


	3. ruins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning: brief mention of suicide (not explicit, but there we go) and dissociation

ACCESS DENIED  
ACCESS DENIED  
AC  ES     N  
  C    S   N ED  
ACCESS GRANTED  
ACCESSING FILE: TALON_WIDOWMAKER

_It is believed that in her fo_

…Estableciendo conexión…  
…Protocolo Sombra v3.2 iniciado…

01:07:47 02:02:02 01:08:06 02:13:43 01:18:32  
01:18:21 02:10:19 01:06:21 02:05:18 01:04:02  
01:07:08 02:18:25 01:13:04 02:19:20 01:23:02

_rmer life, Widowmaker was married to Gérard Lacroix, an Overwatch agent spearheading operations against the Talon terrorist organisation. After several unsuccessful attempts to eliminate Gérard, Talon decided to change its focus to his wife, Amélie. Talon operatives kidnapped her and subjected her to an intense programme of neural reconditioning. They broke her will, suppressed her personality, and reprogrammed her as a sleeper agent. She was eventually found by Overwatch agents, apparently none the worse for wear, and returned to her normal life. Two weeks late_

01:07:47 02:02:02 01:08:06 02:13:43 01:18:32  
01:18:21 02:10:19 01:06:21 02:05:18 01:04:02  
01:07:08 02:18:25 01:13:04 02:19:20 01:23:02  
01:16:40 02:16:35 01:23:04 02:17:16 01:06:42

_r she killed Gérard in his sleep. Her mission complete, Amélie returned to Talon, and they completed the process of turning her into a living weapon. She was given extensive training in the covert arts, and then her physiology was altered, drastically slowing her heart, which turned her skin cold and blue and numbed her ability to experience human emotion. Amé_

01:07:47 02:02:02 01:08:06 02:13:43 01:18:32  
01:18:21 02:10:19 01:06:21 02:05:18 01:04:02  
01:07:08 02:18:25 01:13:04 02:19:20 01:23:02  
01:16:40 02:16:35 01:23:04 02:17:16 01:06:42  
01:13:29 02:18:06 01:05:02 02:15:41 01:08:34

_lie was gone._

j.7F57O,NLv:qj.7B:,1qv@B1j5ivB:,

…Terminando conexión…

*

Beyond the stone archway lay crumbling ruins, half-gnawed away by fallen leaves every possible shade of red. There were so many of them that they came up to Widowmaker’s ankles and she had to wade through to make any progress. Not being able to see her feet made her uneasy—her ankles twinged with remembered pain—but Widowmaker pushed it aside and continued cutting a path through the leaves, rifle held at the ready.

The place was dimly lit by purple light. Low visibility, but she had worked with less. Sombra kept her room in a similar state—muttered _working with two edgelords, I gotta at least have mood lighting_. Reaper growled something that sounded like _poser_ through all the gravel, and on the next mission their communicators screamed piercing static whenever he spoke. Sombra kept up a constant stream of _What? What did you say? Can’t hear you, Gabe, you’re breaking up! Gabe? Gabe, you there? Hey, araña, I think Gabe’s dead._ Just thinking about it made Widowmaker’s eye twitch.

Shaking her head, she lifted her rifle and scanned the area for threats. But no one was there. Nothing moved. The red leaves lay utterly still.

“Ah, do not be afraid,” a voice said suddenly. “You are safe here.”

Widowmaker whirled, the rifle snapping up to centre mass. A Greek goddess was waiting on the steps.

 _What is she wearing_ , Widowmaker thought, horrified. The flowing white with the gold embellishments, she could accept, if not understand. The literal angel wings—a tackiness she could tolerate. But the _sandals_ —they didn’t even have _soles_.

First Tracer’s crocs, now Mercy’s ridiculous…whatever they were. Widowmaker was beginning to detect a trend.

Mercy eyed the rifle, held her hands up. “You are safe here,” she repeated, slower this time, voice carefully modulated. “I was just about to head to the flower patch; it seems that I just missed you.”

“It would not be the first time you did, Doctor,” Widowmaker purred. She noted Mercy’s flinch with detached interest.

“I…” Mercy closed her eyes, visibly gathered herself, and started again. “In any case, I hope that you at least enjoyed the flowers on your way here. They are beautiful, aren’t they?” The smile fell off Widowmaker’s face; the ghost pain in her ankles cracked into solidity like ice. Mercy blinked, confused. “…Was it something I said?”

“What do you want?” Widowmaker asked brusquely.

“I was just about to ask you the same thing,” Mercy replied, still looking faintly puzzled. “If you wish to proceed, I will guide you through the ruins.”

Widowmaker gestured slightly with the rifle. She took great care to make even that small movement disproportionately condescending. As Mercy turned towards the mouth of the ruins, Widowmaker glanced behind her—everything was utterly still, and the only disturbance was the empty swathe she had cut in the leaves.

She followed Mercy into the ruins.

*

The inside of the ruins was completely, ridiculously, painfully purple. As a person who now spent her life some curious shade of the colour, Widowmaker wondered if it was a joke at her expense. (Her eye began to twitch.)

The sound of their footsteps echoed strangely as Mercy led Widowmaker deeper into the ruins. The corridor seemed endless. The floor was featureless and smooth; the walls were frighteningly bare. For no reason at all, Widowmaker thought that a few calaveras would improve the décor.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked, wary.

“Onwards,” Mercy answered helpfully. Then they turned the corner, and there it was.

A dummy.

It hovered off the ground, suspended by invisible strings, its limbs contorted in unnatural positions. The only feature on its stuffed face was a straight black line crossed at intervals by coarse black thread—a rag-doll’s mouth, a mouth stitched shut. It was deeply unnerving to look at. Then it glitched—moved wrong, tore apart down its middle in different directions—and disappeared. In its place was a woman dressed in a hospital gown. She had long dark hair that spilled everywhere. She had healthy pink skin. She had the feet of a dancer. And she was looking right at Widowmaker.

For a long moment no one spoke. Then—

“What is this?” Widowmaker whispered, shaken. The words fell and broke on the floor.

From the other side of the corridor, the thing that looked like Amélie Lacroix tilted her head in greeting. “ _Salut_.”

*

Widowmaker stood rooted to the spot. Her ankles felt strange as she watched the dummy lift up on her toes—as close as one could get to pointe without the right shoes. A frog sporting neon green skates had appeared out of nowhere with an amplifier in its hands, and it was bopping along to the music streaming from the machine.

As the music swelled, the dummy lifted her arms in a familiar pose. It reminded Widowmaker of old pains in her neck and back from extending her arms like swans did their massive wings. Odette and Odile. She had danced them both. Every ballerina’s dream—Gérard had been so happy for her, so excited. She remembered the hours of soaking her feet, of spending as much time as she could off her feet when she wasn’t dancing, of making Gérard carry her everywhere in the house and hitting him when he purposefully took the wrongest possible route to wherever she wanted to go. He had taken great care not to run any part of her into anything. She remembered the exhilaration of thirty-two fouettés. The thunder of applause. The way everything became brighter and louder when she finally exited the theatre, like she was dreaming with her eyes open, like she could split the skin of the world if she only reached out and pushed hard enough.

She thought that maybe she had loved it. She could no longer remember—it had been a lifetime ago.

“I must apologise,” Mercy murmured. The wings on her back flared a gentle gold. Angel wings. Swan wings. Widowmaker’s shoulders ached. “I made a terrible mistake, and it cost you everything. Had I been able to see what Talon had done to you, you would have been safe. Gérard would have been safe. And everything would be different.” She took a deep breath and stepped close, until Widowmaker’s rifle rested directly over her heart. “If you wish to hurt me. I understand.”

Out in the real world, Angela Ziegler covered her mouth. Winston frowned thoughtfully at the way the dummy had glitched. Tracer was coiled with the need to spring off her chair and do something. But on the inside, Widowmaker was utterly unaware of all this, was only distantly conscious that the music was fading and the dummy was dancing further and further away. In this moment she studied Mercy with eyes that were not quite there—like there was a film between her and the world.

Something inside her broke apart. An egg, full of yellow pus, rotting, ugly and wrong, sharp with shell and shrapnel. It oozed out in her voice.

“You people and your saviour complex,” she said, with a terrifying lack of inflection. Her face was utterly blank. “Not everything is about you.”

And without waiting for Mercy, Widowmaker left.

*

Deep beneath the ruins, something moved, tunnelled, pried and gouged. Something with roots. Something with teeth.

The ruins quivered with effort, trying to hold it back—but the floor near the mouth to the ruins began to buckle. Slowly, cracks webbed down the corridor, following the path Widowmaker and Mercy had taken.

It looked like roots.

*

With every step Widowmaker took the corridor filled with red leaves. The ones that lurked at the edge of her vision seemed darker, almost liquid, but when she looked at them directly they were solid again, as if they’d never been anything else.

Mercy had not followed, and the dummy and frog were long gone. It was so quiet that her ears could not stop ringing. Absently, Widowmaker brought a hand up to her ear. Almost immediately she jerked it away, and stared at the blood staining her fingers. Widowmaker mechanically wiped them off on her stomach and continued walking.

(How long had she been walking? How had she gotten to this corridor full of leaves?)

So thick were the leaves on the ground that Widowmaker almost missed the man sitting in them. She recognised him; their paths had crossed once or twice on the field. A sniper like her, save that he used a bow and arrow. A murderer, like her, except he killed his brother and she killed her husband. In another life, perhaps they could have been friends.

“With every death comes honour. With honour, redemption,” said Hanzo Shimada, half-eaten by leaves.

“Whose death?” she asked. Her neck was slick with the blood from her ears.

“Whose else?” he returned, eyes dark, before the leaves swallowed him whole.

*

 _Spider bake sale!_  read the first cobweb stretching across the corridor. _Made by spiders, for spiders, of spiders!_ But Widowmaker’s gaze was fixed on the floor. The leaves were melting into pools of pigment. The red clung to her soles. Made sticky noises when she moved.

The second cobweb: _No? Not even a little glare? I’m insulted._

 _What if I told you I walked around in your fancy French castle after scuba-diving and dripped all over your expensive rugs?_  read the third, in obnoxiously fancy font.

 _Come on, araña_ , read the last cobweb. _Look up_.

Widowmaker didn’t—couldn’t. The leaves multiplied and pressed in from the corners of the corridor. Then there was no space left for the cobwebs, and they disappeared.

*

Under the melting leaves, cracks began to appear.

*

The house rose from the red like it had been spat out of the ground.

“Welcome home,” Mercy said. Widowmaker hadn’t even heard her approach. Her voice was layered with crackling static. Widowmaker caught only snippets of that staticky second voice— _it’s_ — _safe h—g— ou—_ before the dummy was there, smiling, hands light on her arm, tugging her gently into the house. Her mind blanked when she crossed the threshold.

She knew this place. That was the table leg she constantly ran her little toe into. That was the wall she had a habit of touching whenever she passed by. That was the sofa she had spent weeks looking for with Gérard—he had been very insistent on acquiring the perfect one, and had steadfastly ignored every exasperated glare she sent his way.

This was the life she had built. The life she had chosen to—

Then she was standing in the hallway in front of a massive door. She did not remember how she had gotten there. Mercy and the dummy flanked her on both sides. A mirror was mounted on the far wall. There was something deeply wrong with the reflection—even though the lights were on, the house in the mirror was dark. Mercy’s reflection quivered and warped as if over open flame. Then Mercy opened the door.

Open window. Billowing curtains. Her wedding photo. Arterial spray on the walls. Blankets bloated with blood. The man on the bed who could be sleeping if it weren’t for the gaping smile in his throat, who tilted his head to look at Widowmaker, uncaring of how the movement stretched the wound in his throat even bigger.

“ _Bonne nuit, ma chérie_ ,” Gérard said. The blood on the bed glitched—liquid then leaves then liquid again. All at once the leaves took over, spilled from the bed, from the cut in Gérard’s throat, from the stains on the walls, until they flooded out of the room and buried Widowmaker’s ankles, leaves and blood and leaves again, glitching over and over without end.

“Look what you did,” the dummy whispered, chin resting on Widowmaker’s shoulder. Cold fingers took hold of her chin and turned her head towards the mirror. “Look what you made me do.”

Widowmaker looked.

In the flimsy hospital gown, the dummy looked soft and vulnerable; in her suit, with blood smeared everywhere and a rifle in her hands, Widowmaker was ready for war. The only scars on the dummy’s body were from years of dance and trivial accidents; Widowmaker had been cut open and put back together more times than she could count. Then the dummy glitched again—stuffed limbs human limbs white fluff pink skin thread mouth stitched mouth—

All of a sudden Mercy was there behind her other shoulder. “We can help you,” she said. The static under her voice grew louder— _not safe_ — _get_ _out_ —but Widowmaker could not move. The leaves—the blood—the leaves anchored her in place. “We can get you back, Amélie.”

Everything was vibrating.

“But I never went anywhere,” Widowmaker said at last.

The ringing in her ears intensified. Her ears felt more like raw hunks of flesh than ears.

“Gérard was dead whether or not I killed him.” The laugh congealed in her throat. Dripped off her teeth. “They wanted it to be messy. They wanted it to hurt. I could not speak of it to anyone, Talon made sure of that. But I could fight it. I fought for two weeks. Talon became angry. I was taking too long. Then I realised they would take me back—their little pet project—and they would find a way to make me sleep for good. Then they would send me back, and they would make me kill him slowly. They would make me make him wish he was dead.” With one arm she pulled the dummy into an embrace. Her voice rose; her accent grew heavier. “I did not make you do anything. There is no one to get back. We are the same. I loved him. So I chose. I made it as clean and as quick as I could. There is mercy in death.”

It was getting harder to look at Mercy. Her face was as indistinct as melted wax. But Widowmaker had stared down worse.

“This thing you brought me to—the old Amélie Lacroix. The _real_ Amélie Lacroix. Easier to think I was replaced, yes? Easier to think I was gone. Easier to strip me of my name. Widowmaker. Not Amélie Lacroix.” Her voice was yellow bile and shell fragments. Slowly, she brought the rifle up and dug it into the soft of the dummy’s stomach, hard enough to bruise. “That is what they tried to do, too. They called me Widowmaker because they thought it was funny. Because they thought they had won. Because they thought they had taken everything from me. But I chose. I chose. They took everything, but I did not allow them to take my name.

“Despite everything,” she said, deathly quiet, “it’s still me.”

She pulled the trigger. The world crumbled around her in the ensuing roar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> when i took a closer look at widowmaker's official page, some of the phrasing made me uncomfortable. widowmaker is ""believed"" to have been amélie lacroix?? ""amélie was gone""?? the christmas comic had her visiting gérard's grave, my guy. that don't look like someone who's been replaced by some killing machine to me. who's writing this? for what purpose? her entire entry felt like it was depersonning her - i wanted to give her back her personhood and some agency. because any way i look at it, two weeks to kill gérard was a little too long. this also means there's a lot festering in widowmaker.
> 
> thank you all once again for the support!! you guys keep me going ٩(｡•́‿•̀｡)۶ i hope this chapter was worth the wait! (wifi here is terrible, travelling is exhausting...the next one will take a little longer, too!) as always let me know what you thought


	4. reset

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am so so sorry for how long this took!! on top of travelling and university starting again, this chapter fought me every step of the way ಥ﹏ಥ 
> 
> hopefully this was worth the wait.....

Widowmaker was sitting on her haunches in a river of blood. The rifle was now strapped to her back. The false Mercy was slumped against the wall next to the open bedroom door, a neat hole drilled into the centre of her forehead. The remains of the dummy lay at Widowmaker’s feet. It flickered between mannequin and human at odd intervals. It was riddled with bullet holes.

It was eerily quiet; Widowmaker’s ears were still bleeding. She could feel it dripping steadily down her chest. Distantly, she registered the massive rifts in the floor, the widening cracks in the walls, the plaster dust drifting from the ceiling, the groaning of the house. But it was just noise. She stared at the dummy. It was the first time she had ever seen herself violently dead. It should have alarmed her; anyone would have been. She wondered what it meant that she felt nothing but a creeping sense of lightness, of release.

Light footsteps behind her. Footsteps she knew.

Widowmaker said, “You’re here.” 

“‘Course I am,” Tracer said. There was a wet squelching sound accompanied by ominous creaking as Tracer sloshed closer through the blood. But Widowmaker didn’t even twitch, didn’t move to place Tracer at her front. 

It hit Tracer unexpectedly hard—Widowmaker crouching in the corridor of her old home, rifle sleeping across her spine, her back open. Like she didn’t have it in her to care. Like she was done.

Maybe she didn’t think of Tracer as a threat. Maybe she didn’t care. Maybe she was exhausted. Maybe, it occurred to Tracer, she wanted to be left alone. Alone in this nightmare world, this creepy corridor full of the dead, no one stepping dirty footprints all over her mind.

“You, ah. Don’t want me to be? Here?” Tracer cringed internally. Tried again. “Want me to leave?”

There was a pause. Then Widowmaker said, “No.” 

Her voice was a small child wandering from playground to playground, looking for the way home.

“Okay. You wanna… _not_ be here? Go somewhere else?”

Another pause, longer this time. Then, Widowmaker said, “No.”

Tracer nodded. It wasn’t so much a nod as it was a determined bounce of her entire body. “That’s all right. We’ll stay here. As long as you need.”

Mindless of the blood slicking the floor, Tracer sat down.  She didn’t sit so much as throw herself into a sitting position and press her shoulder against Widowmaker’s ribcage. Blood seeped through her leggings. The dead thing that looked more like a melted wax figurine than Angela Ziegler stared at them with glassy eyes. The dummy lay twisted before her and demanded attention. The world was in pieces around them, slowly being pried apart by thick veiny roots. But Tracer stayed still, stayed quiet—stayed there.

After a long moment, Widowmaker finally rocked back on her heels and settled properly on the floor. The slip of her heels in the blood. The crackling of leaves when it couldn’t decide between liquid or solid states. The sharp drag of Tracer’s shoulder up her side as she sank down, strangely grounding. The simple touch felt more intimate than it should. Widowmaker didn’t move away.

 

*

 

“Do you think he knew?” she rasped at last.

“That you loved him?” The pressure against Widowmaker’s side increased as Tracer leaned into her, all quiet reassurance. “Yeah. I know he did.”

Widowmaker had known that conviction from the inside before. Now it was someone pressed arm to arm with her in a nightmare. Now, it was someone sitting with her in a river of leaves and blood. Who didn’t seem to care about the spreading stains on her clothes, or the cloying iron-smell solid enough to taste. She couldn’t understand it. She couldn’t understand Tracer at all.

“I think…I think he’s already forgiven you for it. But it looks to me like maybe you haven’t.” Tracer glanced at her, but Widowmaker was silent, gaze pointedly directed away. Tracer nodded to herself and looked straight ahead again.

“That’s all right. We don’t have to talk about it. When I, uh…” She cleared her throat, fiddled with her fingers. “I didn’t want to talk, either.”

Shit. She hadn’t meant to make it about her. The air was heavy with silence and ghosts, _great job, Oxton, you goddamn self-centered idiot, congratulations on ruining everything—_

“What was it like?” Widowmaker asked at last, staring at Tracer’s fingers, tripping over themselves, again and again.

Tracer was quiet for so long that Widowmaker thought she wouldn’t answer. With startling clarity, Widowmaker realised that a quiet Tracer unnerved her, and she could not for the life of her explain why. Feeling more than a little out of her depth, Widowmaker tentatively mimicked Tracer’s earlier movements and leaned into her touch. An end to this line of conversation, if she took it.

Tracer flashed a smile. Widowmaker could see the cracks in it.

“Thanks, love. I, uh…” There was a strange timbre in her voice that tried to convince itself that it wasn’t there. “I was…I was cold all over, all the time. Weird, because I don’t know if all of me was there enough to feel cold in the first place. Didn’t have hands or feet, or anything, really. Not even lungs. I couldn’t breathe. It was like I was drowning, all the time, like I fell into a lake and it froze over me and people were skating on top of me but no one saw me beating my hands bloody on the ice." Her voice was hoarsening. She hated it. She kept going. "Think I called for help. But maybe I didn’t. Don't think I had a mouth or a throat in there. Doesn’t matter. For the longest time, nobody came.” Tracer shook her head and laughed, jagged. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this—“

“No,” Widowmaker interrupted. This time, when Tracer’s eyes flicked up to hers, she didn’t look away. “No, I understand.” 

But it was Tracer's turn to break eye contact. She dipped her head so her collar obscured half of her words. She was fidgeting more than normal, Widowmaker observed, and that look on her face before she looked away—Widowmaker knew the shape of it on her own. 

“Could you, ah...could you tell me what you mean?” She huffed a fractured laugh into her jacket collar, tugged it closer. It was the most uncertain Widowmaker had ever seen her. “You don’t have to, love, just—no one’s ever—I think it'll help. You and me both." She uttered another helpless laugh.

It was suddenly vitally important to Widowmaker that she made this uncharacteristic uncertainty, this quiet vulnerability stop. She didn’t know why—she couldn’t put a name to it—but she wanted Tracer to know.

“After Gérard,” Widowmaker said abruptly, “Talon took me back, and took me apart, and put me back together. They left out some things.”

Tracer stilled.

“When I woke up,” she continued, voice burning with intensity, “there was a barrier between me and the world. I couldn’t reach through, and nothing could reach me. I couldn’t feel anything. Like I was buried. Underground. I might have cared at the beginning, but it was not long before I forgot why I did. I know I did not call for help; there was no reason to. In any case, nobody would have heard. I doubt that even I would have. I watched from behind the barrier until it felt like I was not fully here. It is not the same, but—“ Here she struggled, her throat working around words that had become unfamiliar with disuse— “You are not alone.”

They stared at each other, both unsure of what the other was seeing, but looking back anyway. Then all at once Tracer sagged against her. Thrown off balance, Widowmaker froze—then slowly, she leaned back.

“Thanks, love.”

“... _De rien, chérie.”_

Neither of them said another word. They didn’t have to.

 

*

 

“We should get out of here,” Tracer said awkwardly, clearing her throat. She got to her feet, patted herself off just for something to do, and offered Widowmaker a hand. “This place is falling apart. Path here was nothing but roots. Doesn’t look like the walls are going to hold for much longer, either.”

“ _You_ should get out of here, you little idiot,” Widowmaker corrected, more brusquely than warranted. She eyed Tracer’s outstretched hand. Proceeded to ignore it. She stood, unslinging the rifle from her back, and cast a critical glance at the roots creeping closer. Her ankles twinged. “I survived the flowers before. You might not. And,” she added dryly, “when I kill you, I would like to do it in person, and somewhere else.”

“You been fantasising about me, love?” Widowmaker fixed her with a look. Tracer huffed, planted her hands on her hips and drew herself up to her fullest height—she only came up to Widowmaker’s shoulders, at _best_ , but _still._ “You know, if you want me to get out of your head, you can just say so. I’m a big girl, I can take it. Otherwise, I’m not leaving you alone.” 

“So, like usual,” Widowmaker said dryly. She did not think about how this annoyed her less than it should. She did not linger on how quickly she acquiesced. It was not relevant. Briskly, she tapped on the pistols strapped to Tracer’s forearms. “Fine. Then kill me.”

Tracer’s eyes went wide. “What? No! Why would you say that?”

“It is either you or the flowers, _chérie._ And I am very certain I would prefer it this way,” Widowmaker said. “The flowers went away after I died. If I die again, I can make this go away.” She tapped her forehead, matter-of-fact. It chilled Tracer to the bone. “Even _your_ aim will hold if I stay very still.”

“Nobody’s dying,” Tracer said loudly, ignoring the jibe. “I didn’t come all the way here for anyone to die. Jesus, don’t ever say that ever again. Besides, if I’m in here while you—while you _reset_ , who knows what would happen.”

“A problem that will go away if you leave _, chérie.”_

“I’m not hearing a _bugger off,_ love. And if my leaving means you offing yourself, then it’s a no from me.” Tracer held out her hands, palms up, and pretended not to notice the way Widowmaker froze. Maybe she moved too quickly? “Take my hands. I’m going to get you out of this, all right?”

“What is it that you always say? The cavalry’s here?” There was an edge in Widowmaker’s voice, sharp with warning, sharp enough to carve Tracer molecule by molecule from this space. “Is that why you’re here? To save me?”

But Tracer didn’t flinch. Her hands didn’t waver.

“No,” she said seriously. “You did that all on your own. Did you know that? You’re smacking the programme back and forth like nobody’s business. You’re writing over the code, laying down save points, stabilising the whole thing yourself. Angie thinks it’s why you’re still alive after what happened in that cave. You saved yourself there like how you saved yourself from Talon. I’m here because you are, love. That’s all.”

Widowmaker blinked. For a moment she almost looked uncertain, but the moment passed, and once again she was impassive. She strapped the rifle to her back again. Eyed Tracer’s hands like they were bear-traps. Then slowly, gingerly, like she couldn’t quite believe what she was doing, she laid her hands on Tracer’s with almost childlike precision. It felt too intimate, even through both their gloves. Then Tracer shifted her grip, folded their fingers together tightly. Involuntarily, Widowmaker’s fingers twitched; she resisted the immediate urge to disengage.

“All right. You’ve already done all the work, so I’m going to pull us backwards to your last save point. Full disclosure, I don’t know what it’s going to be like. But no matter what happens, I’m getting you somewhere, sometime safe. Trust me on that, all right?” Tracer squeezed her hands, smiled reassuringly. “You ready?”

“…Yes.”

“Then hold on tight, love.”

Tracer closed her eyes. The chronal accelerator began to hum, the sound rapidly escalating into a high-pitched whine even as the blue core flared magnesium white. The light leached all the colour from the corridor, obliterated every line, erased every edge. Tracer was vibrating in place, strangely translucent. A jolt of surprise and fear forked through Widowmaker when she looked down at her own body and realised that she too was fading, a ghost, more after-image than person. Then the world dropped out from beneath her, and as they plunged together into roaring electric blue, the only solid thing was Tracer’s hands in her own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> honestly even i can't believe this slow burn is this slow
> 
> as work piles up, updates will slow (ノ_<、) but i'll try my hardest, and i will definitely keep going with this (i am far too invested!)
> 
> again, let me know what you thought! you guys keep me going ♡


	5. your best friend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT: oh god because i'm a fool i accidentally deleted this chapter trying to edit it so here it is again SORRY GUYS
> 
> once again i apologise for the super late update! it's been nearly a month...life is all over the place right now but i will KEEP GOING IF IT KILLS ME
> 
> hope you enjoy!!

This feeling. This _feeling._ Like the sensation of falling just when she was falling asleep. Like she was nowhere at all. And Widowmaker couldn’t move—no matter how she strained, no matter how much her muscles bunched to the point of soreness beneath her skin, her body did not respond, as if she were once again a corpse watching her own autopsy.

Panic seized her at once. As she gasped for breath bubbles exploded from her nose and mouth (underwater? but how—why—?) until she couldn’t see anything past the bursting blue, the fizzing iridescence. 

Something, she realised, was latched onto her hands. Something was dragging her somewhere. She jerked away hard, but it held fast. 

No. No, no—

— _no no no no don’t let go_

That _voice—_

_don’t let go, love_

Tracer.

Tracer was holding her hands.

_don’t let go._

 

*

 

A realisation: Tracer could very easily let go of _her._

It would be easy. A loosening of fingers. Eliminate the threat. 

Another realisation: Widowmaker knew she wouldn’t. 

Somehow, she trusted this girl.

When had that happened?

Was it in Ilios? That was their first run-in with each other after King’s Row. If nothing else, it confirmed Widowmaker’s suspicion that all the other times Tracer had been holding back. When the call to regroup came, Tracer had bodily tackled Widowmaker into the well before recalling out. She hadn’t looked back once.

But Tracer must have known that she could grapple out. Tracer must have known she would be safe. Why? There were plenty of reasons to want her dead—Mondatta was only one of them. So why didn’t she—? 

Widowmaker had puzzled over it for days before Sombra finally got it out of her.

_It’s called flirting, araña._

_I do not_ flirt.

_You so do. You did in King’s Row._

_I nearly killed her in King’s Row._

_Oh, please. That shot was meant for the omnic. I’m not a sniper, but even I know that anything in the line of fire would throw the bullet off course. Even a tiny microphone could cost you a successful kill, right? And this is a grown woman with a time lantern strapped to her chest we’re talking about. You knew she’d get out of the way. That’s why you took the shot._

_...._

_Relax. I’m not going to tell. I’m on your side._

_...hmn._

_Trust me._ A pause. Then— _It’s flirting. Are you seriously this out of touch? Don’t worry, I can be your love guru. I charge by the hour._

 

*

 

Widowmaker didn’t let go. 

Tracer didn’t, either.

Then at last, Tracer’s hands tightened around hers, and _pulled._

 

*

 

They slammed hard into red leaves and rough stone.

“Jesus _god,”_ Tracer wheezed from underneath Widowmaker, who couldn’t tell if Tracer was winded because of the strain of the reset, or because she was crushing her. She tried to lever herself off to the side, but every muscle in her body was sore to the bone, and she didn’t get very far before her shaking arms folded and she collapsed again onto Tracer, who grunted. 

“ _Un instant.”_

“Nah, it’s all right, take your time.” It was kind of nice, actually, Widowmaker’s weight on her. Grounding. Horizontal hugging with zero violence. Tracer kind of liked it—

Oh.

_Oh._

Oh, no.

Wait, wait, back up, try again. This was nice. That was all, nothing else. This was nice. This was—

“This is nice,” she said out loud.

Widowmaker lifted her head and stared.

Oh, _no._

“I mean,” Tracer fumbled, cheeks aflame, “I mean, you know, not dying. And, uh, being safe. In general. Because we’re safe. Not, you know, the thing where you’re literally on top of me. Which isn’t to say that that isn’t nice, just, um—I’ll just stop talking now.”

Widowmaker was still staring, and not saying anything, and Tracer—Tracer was _pretty sure_ her face was actually on fire, and she was _pretty sure_ that qualified as a come-on, and she was _absolutely certain_ that Widowmaker didn’t—look, Widowmaker had a lot on her plate, flowers and all, she didn’t need this, and besides there was no way she—

“I agree,” Widowmaker said.

Tracer choked. “I? Might need you to elaborate?”

“…This is nice.”

If her own face was tingling strangely, Widowmaker was _ignoring it._

“Okay,” Tracer said after a while. “Cool.”

They stared at each other, neither of them certain what their faces were doing anymore, but not looking away. Then a voice broke the quiet.

“I don’t mean to interrupt—“

“There is nothing to interrupt,” Widowmaker snapped.

“—but your face is a very strange shade of purple. Do you require medical attention?”

“Hiya, Angie!” Tracer said loudly, before Widowmaker decided to maim Mercy. “You feeling better? You weren’t quite yourself back there.”

“Much better, thank you.” Wings flaring, Mercy drifted over to them. Tracer felt Widowmaker tense—since when were her hands on her waist??—before Widowmaker pushed to her feet on still-shaking limbs by sheer force of will. But Mercy didn’t come any closer, only wrung her hands. 

“I apologise, Amélie. I tried to fight it, but I could not stop it from speaking with my voice, let alone break its hold on me.”

Widowmaker scrutinised Mercy, who shifted uneasily under the weight of that golden stare. Then, measured: “Given that I shot you in the head, I think we are even.”

Meanwhile, Tracer struggled to get up, but she couldn’t really feel her limbs. The rewind had taken a lot more out of her than she’d thought. Without Widowmaker’s weight pressing her to the ground, she felt this side of too boundless. She resisted the urge to look down and check if her hands were still there. _Again? Thought we were past this—_  

A gloved hand slid into her field of vision. Tracer looked up in surprise. The look on Widowmaker’s face was the same one from before, from when Tracer held out her hands and a promise to get her somewhere safe. But despite that almost-uncertainty, Widowmaker still held out her hand.

Tracer took it, and pulled herself onto her feet. 

(There. Solid hands. Still here. Repress and deny, and keep going.) 

Mercy continued. “On my way here I checked on the state of the ruins. The roots are gone now, but I cannot guarantee your safety here any longer. The best thing for you to do is leave the ruins immediately. I think you will be safer with distance.”

“They will catch up,” Widowmaker said. Casual, as if she were discussing the weather. “They caught up to me after I left the cave. Distance will only buy us some time.”

“With whom I’m on very good terms with,” Tracer quipped. “Keeps trying to drag me back for a chat or two. My best friend, it is.”

Mercy smiled, but Widowmaker—Widowmaker’s eyes snapped to hers. Like maybe she could tell—

When this happened—less often now, nearly never, really, she was perfectly fine—but when this happened, Tracer usually just locked herself in her room and let the shivers shake themselves out. It wasn’t an option now. It wasn’t the time for it, either. _Repress and deny._

“Dunno about you, but I like our odds." Carefully, she avoided looking directly at Widowmaker. Then she frowned. “Hold on. You said the best thing for ‘you’ to do. You’re not coming with?”

Mercy only smiled. “Please follow me. I will guide you to the exit.”

 

*

 

The ruins were different this time. The path was now completely straight, every twist in the corridor ironed out. The red leaves were gone. It felt like the entire place was holding its breath. Mercy led them with brisk purpose further and further into the ruins, until at last they came to a large featureless door.

“Your exit,” Mercy said, clasping her hands in front of her and stepping back. “When you leave, no matter what happens, please do not come back. I will stay here and stall for as long as I can. You have to keep going onwards, until you reach the end.” 

_No matter what happens?_

“Angie,” Tracer said slowly. “You’re scaring me.” 

“Do not worry about me,” Mercy said. The smile on her face was grim but determined. “Somebody has to take care of those flowers.”

Widowmaker understood at once. Her jaw tightened; for a few beats she stared at Mercy. Then she turned towards the door. “ _Allons-y.”_

Tracer bit her lip, but moved to help Widowmaker push the door open. Cold air billowed in at once. It smelled like snow. Before stepping through, she darted one last worried glance at Mercy. Logically— _logically_ , she knew that this was not really Angela Ziegler. This was just a construct of a programme, just a few lines of code. But despite everything, she still—

“Take care of yourself," she said at last. "All right, Ange?”

Mercy nodded. Tracer’s grip on the edge of the door tightened, then she nodded to herself and stepped through the door.

Widowmaker moved to follow. One foot over the threshold, she hesitated. Then, without turning around, she said, “ _Je vous remercie.”_

“Good luck,” Mercy said, and the door fell closed behind Widowmaker, leaving the doctor in the ruins, alone but for the flowers.

 

*

 

The two women emerged in a hushed snowy forest where the trees were more like sleeping giants than trees, contorted into impossible shapes and angles, and there were so many of them that the dark in their leaves and bark sucked all the light from the forest. The chronal accelerator’s diffuse blue glow was often the only light by which they could see by. Between the blue light and the black-green shadows, it felt like they were walking on the bottom of the sea. 

“This doesn't feel like a horror movie at all," Tracer joked. Or tried to. She could hear her teeth chattering, and she was pretty sure Widowmaker could, too, if that glance was anything to go by—and there it was again, that look. Tracer pulled her jacket closer to her body in an effort to keep warm. It. Didn’t really help. “Couldn’t have been a beach, huh? Nice and warm?”

“I am not nice or warm," Widowmaker said quietly. "Perhaps that explains it.”

Tracer considered this.

“I dunno, love. You’re all right to me.”

Widowmaker blinked. “I see,” she said eventually, and ruthlessly crushed the odd feeling in her chest. Was this going to be a recurring theme as they went onwards? She quickened her stride. “We should keep moving. It would be very inconvenient if you froze to death.”

Tracer hurried to catch up. Why was Widowmaker going so fast all of a sudden? But there wasn’t much time for her to wonder why; they barely went five steps before a crack echoed through the woods, strong enough to send shockwaves through the entire forest. At once Widowmaker pivoted, drawing her rifle in the same breath, and automatically Tracer moved to cover her. They stood back to back, weapons at the ready, and scanned the area for threats. But it was too dark for them to make anything out. The forest pressed in on them. The shadows were almost viscous, almost breathing, against which the blue light of the accelerator felt like a flimsy shield.

Then a voice that sounded like gravel said, “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Black smoke blasted from the black-green trees. It roared past them and condensed into a dense cloud of swirling dust ahead of the path.

“That’s right.”

A familiar figure emerged from the smoke.

“It’s me,” said Reaper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> things might not be as they seem....
> 
> i've never written fluffy?? romancey??? things before (this is my first fic.......ahaha.......) and i'd love to hear what you thought about it! i'm trying to pace it because they have so much to get through...but i'm pretty excited haha there's a chapter i'm dying to write already
> 
> i've also made a sideblog for writing it's currently empty because i don't even have time to breathe hahahahhaa but if you do feel like it, you can find me on tumblr at nishiru.tumblr.com! 
> 
> as always let me know what you thought!


	6. memory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my apologies for the long wait! i only had time to start this chapter when term finally ended, and it was exceedingly difficult to write (ﾉ_ヽ)
> 
> to make up for it, this is a longer and heavier chapter. without any further ado, here we go!

Widowmaker sighed. It was an astoundingly layered noise. Contained within this sound was a world of _what the fuck is this_ and _I am getting very tired of this shit,_ wrapped up in a French-sounding mess of consonants. Roughly translated, it went like so: _hrrfhfhrfhrhh._ “Do you always have to be so dramatic?”

“I’m dead,” Reaper rasped. “I’m going to make the most of it.”

That sounded like the Reaper she knew. Widowmaker rolled her eyes and lowered her rifle. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Tracer follow her lead, though not without hesitation. _Good girl._ “What are you doing here?”

“I’m supposed to show you the way out of this place.” 

 _He doesn’t sound very enthused_ , Tracer thought, wary. “Supposed?”

“Programme’s reeling from the rewind. Nice stunt, kid. You’ve confused the ever-loving shit out of a bunch of ones and zeroes.” He tilted his head. It was hard to tell with the mask, but Widowmaker thought he was staring at her. The skull he wore glinted almost knowingly in the blue light of the accelerator. “It’s not used to this way of doing things.”

Tracer frowned. “Does that mean this place’s gonna fall to pieces again?”

“It means that you can’t do shit in here until she fixes it. Could walk for days and still not make it out of these woods.” Reaper sounded almost bored. He cracked his neck. “Lucky for you, I know a shortcut.”

“To somewhere warmer, I hope,” Widowmaker said. She made sure not to glance in Tracer’s direction, but Reaper was very observant. He also had the superhuman ability to make even a skull mask expressive. Now, she had the distinct impression that he was smirking at her. Widowmaker sent him a warning look.

“It even has good food.” The snow crunched beneath Reaper’s heavy boots as he turned and waited for them. “Hurry up. I don’t like the look of these fucking trees.”

Widowmaker started after him, but slowed when she realised Tracer was trailing behind. The girl was still frowning, and Widowmaker didn’t understand why. There was no real reason to be worried. The flowers were hers to contend with; even if they killed her, she had survived them before. No matter what happened, Tracer would be safe. Widowmaker would make sure of it.

“Hey, Reaper,” Tracer called. This was so weird. Hey-ing Reaper, of all people. Who had tried to kill her and her friends multiple times. Who was also apparently _actually dead_. Just, like. _Hey._ Like they were pals, or something. Surreal. “What did you mean by shortcut?”

“This,” Reaper said, and the floor below them dissolved into shadows as thick as molasses. It was quick and quiet, like sinking into quicksand. The last thing Widowmaker heard before black dust sealed her ears shut was Tracer’s startled “Fucking _hell,_ ” and then she felt Tracer grasp at her hand in panic. For a second Widowmaker’s fingers stuttered. Then they tightened decisively on Tracer’s, as black dust billowed up and the snowy forest disappeared.

 

*

 

“Three burgers and fries,” Soldier 76 said gruffly, sliding the plates onto the counter. Out of nowhere, he produced a shot for Reaper.  “Your usual,” he said to Reaper. Then he set down a beer for Tracer and a glass of wine for Widowmaker. “Drink up.”

“Aw, thanks, Dad,” Tracer said around a mouthful of fries. “Oh my god, these are really good.”

Meanwhile, Widowmaker was staring at 76’s feet. She hadn’t stopped staring ever since they stepped into the grillhouse. She could look past the beer pouch, the tacky red shirt, but this she could not ignore. “What are those shits,” she said, horrified.

Tracer ducked under the counter, resurfaced, swallowed her mouthful of fries, and announced, “Socks and sandals. All right, I gotta ask. First it was my crocs, then it was Mercy’s weird sandals, and now we’ve got 76 with his old man shoes.” She put her chin on her hand and squinted at Widowmaker. “Either you’ve got a foot fetish, or you’re insulting all of us with footwear.”

“I do not have a foot fetish,” Widowmaker said archly. She picked up a fry and inspected it critically, before popping it in her mouth and chewing thoughtfully. It was good. She picked up another. She never thought that the old soldier who shot at her in the field could cook, but she supposed that Tracer would know. “Besides, you would wear crocs.”

“I would,” Tracer agreed cheerfully, and proceeded to steal several of Widowmaker’s fries. Widowmaker’s glare could have withered every tree in the creepy forest outside, but Tracer only grinned around five stolen fries and nudged Widowmaker’s feet with her own, which, thankfully, were securely ensconced in her usual running shoes. Tracer had never been more happy to see them on her feet than when she was sprinting through the crumbling ruins to get to Widowmaker. Crocs weren’t, ah. Really made for running. But instead of saying this, she joked, “I’m glad I’ve got these now instead of the crocs. Cold would’ve taken my toes right off. All those holes.” She leaned forward to peer around Widowmaker at Reaper. “So, you’re paying, right?”

“Put it on my tab,” Reaper said. 76 nodded.

“Cheers, mate.” Reaper, she noticed, made no move to start on his meal. Meanwhile, she’d already demolished half of her burger. She really was famished. Maybe it was the rewind, maybe it was the cold, but this was _gourmet stuff_. Why hadn’t 76 thrown a cookout for everyone yet, absolutely criminal. “How are you gonna eat with that mask on, anyway? And aren’t you dead? Why do you need food? Wait, are you actually dead? And how does 76 know your usual?”

Reaper laughed darkly. “You really haven’t changed, Oxton.”

Surprised, Widowmaker glanced at Tracer. Her raised eyebrow asked, _You know him from before?_ Tracer’s one-shouldered shrug replied, _I haven’t the foggiest what he’s going on about, do you?_

Reaper must have noticed, because he rasped, “Don’t bother. Lacroix doesn’t know who I am.”

And she didn’t. She didn’t know his full, real name, only the nickname Sombra threw around every once in a while, _Gabe_ this _Gabe_ that _Gabe are you dead if you are respond._ She didn’t know what he looked like under the mask, or if he even had a face. Sometimes she wondered where he had come from, if he was like her, if Talon had needled him open too. She didn’t know how he killed his marks, only that he did, and that afterwards the bodies were always grey and flaking into ash and drained of—everything. He was terrifying. He might be terrible. But so was she, and they had worked together for a long time, long enough that she thought she could trust him to not kill her, or if he had to, to make it quick.

But if she didn’t know. If she didn’t know, and Tracer didn’t know, then—

76 asked, “How’s the food?”

“Really good, thanks,” Tracer said, still eyeing Reaper curiously. Widowmaker was only half-listening, frowning to herself, trying to pin down whatever it was that her mind was telling her.

Then Tracer said, “Didn’t know you could cook like this, Commander. You’ve been holding out on us.”

Widowmaker stilled. With precise movements, she set her fourth French fry back down on the plate. Then she ducked under the table, ignoring Tracer’s startled noise. She looked at Reaper’s feet. 

Heavy combat boots. The ones he always wore on missions. They were nothing like Mercy’s ridiculous sandals, or 76’s atrocious footwear, or the crocs Tracer had worn in the cave before she ventured into a house weeping blood, and became overwhelmingly real. Widowmaker pulled herself upright. She looked hard at Reaper. The mask looked back, utterly expressionless.

Oblivious to the sudden tension in the room, 76 said, “You joined us a little late for the cookouts. Used to do that on the regular, before shit hit the fan. Those were good times. Good memories.”

“Whose?” Widowmaker stared intently at Reaper. “Whose memories?”

Reaper said, “I knew I liked you for a reason.”

“That’s what you always said about your recruits.” 76 was polishing a glass. He didn’t seem to notice that they had spoken at all. “You always had a way with the angry ones. Especially Jesse. Looked up to you like a brother. You’d say jump, he’d say how high.”

Suddenly, Tracer dumped her half-eaten burger back onto her plate, like she had lost her appetite. Her face was hard. Her eyes were harder. Even after Mondatta Widowmaker had never—

The door tinkled as it opened.

“There he is.” Then 76 muttered, “He’s early. Ain’t even noon.”

“Howdy,” said Jesse McCree, patting snow off his red serape. Despite the cold, he was wearing beach shorts and red flip-flops.

“McCree,” 76 greeted. “You really dressed for the weather, huh.”

McCree shrugged. “Freak snowstorm. Was heading to the beach.” Then he called to Reaper, “Fancy a drink, pumpkin? For old times’ sake?”

“What’s it going to be?” 76 said into the dead quiet, already turning to whip up a drink.

McCree whistled, heaved himself onto the seat at the far end of the bar. “Whatever you got on tap, boss.”

Nobody else moved. Reaper reached for his drink at last.

“Jack,” he said, “keep these coming. Put McCree on my tab, too.”

Then he reached for his face, and pulled off the mask.

His face was ruined. His skin was ash grey, and flaked off in rivulets of black dust. Bone peeked out at them through the grey, disappearing as the skin reknit itself, only for other parts of him to disintegrate and start the cycle anew. He sounded exactly like he would sound if his vocal cords were constantly falling apart and pulling back together and falling apart again. But the jawline, the eyes, the cocky grin—Tracer recognised them all.

He tossed the mask carelessly onto the bar. Holding Widowmaker’s wide-eyed stare, he lifted the shot to his lips. “You didn’t think we were going to throw you to the wolves with no backup, did you?”

“Gabriel Reyes,” Tracer said, dangerously quiet.

He downed the shot. Without prompting, 76 slid another down the bar to him.

“That’s right. It’s me.” Reyes grinned humourlessly. “In the flesh.”

 

*

 

“You can kill me, if that makes you feel better,” Reyes said, utterly unperturbed. “You can even kill me multiple times. Heard you can reset.”

For one brief moment Tracer was terrifyingly still. Then she exploded into a flurry of motion. One moment she was frozen in her chair, the next she’d blinked right up next to Reaper and yanked him off his chair.

Widowmaker reached for her wine. “Don’t kill him,” was all she said.

“Wasn’t planning on it, love.” Then Tracer disappeared in a rush of blue, and Reyes slammed hard into the wall. Black dust scattered everywhere. His skull bounced off the wooden panel just in time for him to take a punch to the face as Tracer rematerialised. “Funny,” she said conversationally. Something in her tone made Widowmaker tighten her fingers on the stem of her wine glass. “Could’ve sworn Gabriel Reyes was my Commander. The one who made sure all of us made it out of the London uprising alive. The one who gave his life to Overwatch. Could’ve sworn he was killed in the explosion. Know what makes it funnier?” Tracer’s voice dipped into a low snarl. “I even cried for the guy.”

She shoved him harder against the wall. The wooden panels rattled. He grunted, but didn’t fight back. “Turns out he’s a bloody turncoat, though,” she said casually. “Turns out he’s been slaughtering us. It’s funny, it’s really funny. Because when they said you were the rot in Overwatch all those years ago, here I was wondering what the hell was really going on, because the guy who got us all through the crisis wasn’t the person they were talking about.”

Reyes bared his teeth in a smile. “Heard you were quick, Oxton. Maybe you’d have been a good fit for Blackwatch, after all. You weren’t wrong. I was set up.”

“Yeah? Makes sense. Always thought it was too easy, blaming you for everything." Tracer cocked her head and smiled right back. "Know what doesn’t make sense? You hunting us down and killing us one by one.”

Reyes laughed. _Laughed._ “Us, huh? That’s cute. You think the agents I killed were on your side? They were fucking maggots. They were the rot. They’re the ones who fucked us all over. Including Lacroix.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You think it was an accident that Overwatch didn’t keep Amélie Lacroix in medical longer after she was rescued? She didn’t have a scratch on her, but anyone with two brain cells to rub together would’ve thought it was off. What the hell was the point of abducting her if they weren’t going to _do_ anything? That’s not how Talon works. Angela would’ve seen it. But the paperwork came through in record fucking time. After what, three, four days? Amélie went home.” Reyes met Widowmaker’s stare over Tracer’s shoulder. “Angela’s the best. But even she needed more than three days to figure out what Talon did to you.”

“You’re saying that Talon was inside Overwatch,” Widowmaker said tonelessly. “They left me to kill Gérard on purpose.”

“You didn’t stand a chance,” Reyes said. “And neither did I.” 

“Doesn’t change how you fucked off to Talon,” Tracer said evenly, because if she didn’t control every movement she made she would wind up breaking his face, and a broken jaw made talking difficult. “If you were on our side once, you aren’t now.”

“Aren’t I?” Reyes’s eyes were dark, intent. “The museum.”

“Doomfist’s gauntlet,” Widowmaker murmured. “We failed the mission.”

“We weren’t going to. Not until I broke Winston’s spectacles.” Tracer went completely still. “Winston beat Doomfist through sheer force of anger alone. If I pissed him off, I was getting my ass handed to me, and we were losing the mission. So I pissed him off. It’s only a matter of time before Doomfist gets his gauntlet back, but there’s no point speeding things up.”

“You were stalling.” Tracer remembered the kids ducking for cover right next to her. Winston on the ground. Reaper coalescing out of smoke and advancing slowly on them. Widowmaker reaching for the gauntlet. She remembered marvelling at how quickly the tables had turned in their favour, all because Reaper stepped on Winston’s glasses. Her grip on Reyes loosened. “Why?”

“To buy Sombra more time to find out what the hell’s pushing the world over into a second Omnic Crisis,” Reyes said. “Overwatch was the only thing that stopped the first one. Gérard Lacroix led the task force against Talon. He did a lot of damage. Now both of them are dead. Akande Ogundimu’s back and taking control of Talon. He wants war, and without Overwatch in the way, he’s going to get it. Easy to blame it on him, too. But he’s just the means. He was _placed_ in this position. It’s bigger than just Doomfist. It’s bigger than Overwatch. It’s bigger than Talon. It’s bigger than the entire fucking world, and it’s moving us like fucking chess pieces. I’m not even supposed to be on the playing field. That bomb was supposed to kill me and Morrison. We were threats. Overwatch is supposed to be dead. But here I am, and here you are. 

“Know why I attacked Winston in Gibraltar? He’d been inches away from initiating recall for months. He needed a push. I needed all of you active. Even stuck around afterwards to make sure he went through with it. I was there then, and I’m here now because we’re running out of time. The game’s changing. Now that Doomfist is out of prison, the timeline is accelerating. Things have been worsening with Mondatta’s death; we’re right on the edge of a civil war, and everyone is so preoccupied that nobody even thinks that Anubis waking up is a cause for concern. It was contained. That’s all that matters. Whatever it is, we’re making progress tracking it down, but the last time someone got this close, things didn’t end well. Sombra had to erase her entire life to keep herself safe. I figured I’d spread the risk. And you idiots are no use to me flying blind.”

Tracer released him. She put her hands behind her head and walked away, breathing deeply. 

“Here you are,” repeated Widowmaker. “How?”

“Sombra,” he rasped. “The moment they booted up the programme, she had access to the system. She wanted to keep an eye on you. Wanted to make sure they weren’t just going to kill you and waste all our hard work getting you out.” He picked up his burger and took a big bite. He didn’t seem to care that Tracer was pacing like a caged animal behind him. “Things were going good for approximately two minutes, then we saw the flowers. You’re pretty fucked in the head, Lacroix.”

“So are you,” she said after a while.

He considered this. “You got me there.” He munched on the burger, taking his time. “Programme’s gone off the rails. Chunks of code chewed out of it. Sombra doesn’t know why. She’s working on it. But she couldn’t do it remotely, the same way Winston couldn’t do it from the outside. She had to upload herself into the programme.”

Widowmaker stared at him. Her chest felt strangely tight. “She’s here too?”

“You really didn’t see the spiderwebs.” Widowmaker blinked at him, confused, but he waved it off. “If you ask me, I’d say she feels guilty. This whole thing was her idea. She even asked me to help out. Said my ugly face would scare the flowers off.” He jerked his chin at McCree and 76 at the other end of the bar. They hadn’t reacted at all to the altercation with Tracer. “Something about multiple participants, taking the programme’s focus off you.”

“I suppose I should say thank you.”

“I’m not doing this to help you,” Reyes said. “I don’t actually care. I’m here to deliver a message to Overwatch, and your head’s the most secure way I’ve got to do it.”

Widowmaker studied him. “ _Merci,_ ” she said anyway.

“Yeah, whatever.”

Tracer slid back into the seat next to Widowmaker. “Do they know?” she asked, sounding incredibly tired. “Jack and Ana?”

“They know it’s me. They don’t know what I just told you.” Reyes smirked. “They’ve been looking for me for months. I’d like to see their faces when they find out I was right at their doorstep.”

“I don’t know if I trust you,” Tracer said suddenly. “I don’t know if what you said is true.”

“Good. You’d be an idiot, otherwise.”

“But if you’re here to help Amélie,” Tracer continued, voice strong with determination, “then we’ve got the same goal. We’ll figure out if you’re a snake or not when we get out of this programme. As long as you don’t try to kill me in here, we’re good.”

Widowmaker blinked. It was the first time that Tracer had called her by her name. An odd warmth bloomed in her chest. Not knowing what to do with it, she picked up another French fry.

“Acknowledged.”

They fell silent. Widowmaker picked at her fries.

“Been a while since I’ve had a burger that good," Reyes finally said, staring at his plate. His face was shadowed. "Morrison always was a good hand at the grill.”

Silence.

“Wish he did that for us," Tracer muttered. She didn't look at him at all. "Hana would challenge him to a barbecue-off or something. And I'd get to eat all the food." Her stomach growled. She huffed a laugh. "Looks like rewinding in here really works different from the real world. Could eat a horse."

Widowmaker picked up her burger and nudged her fries closer to Tracer. "Eat," she commanded.

Tracer looked at her, confused. "Aren't you hungry?"

"I do not need much food. And the burger is enough."

Tracer hesitated. "Well...if you're sure.” She smiled. “Thanks, love."

Reyes watched them for a while. He took in the way Widowmaker regarded her burger, like she was mentally preparing for war, and the way she checked surreptitiously that Tracer was eating. He took in the faint smile on Tracer’s face, and the way she left a healthy amount of fries for Widowmaker. Then he muttered, "Damn it. Sombra was right.”

Widowmaker tilted her head, genuinely confused. "Right about what?"

He shook his head. "Never mind."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hoo boy that was a lot
> 
> (that’s also why it took so friggin long—i knew what i wanted to do with reaper but tried three different ways of writing this and none of them felt right, this is the fourth way god bless)
> 
> when a joke about summer skins turns into a crack plot point?? idek. and ye i took some liberties with mccree’s—look, papyrus needs his red cape ok
> 
> as always, let me know what you thought!


	7. waterfall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello!! it’s been ages i'm so sorry...but!! this is finally ready!!! (i'm so relieved i've been fighting this chapter since the last update no joke and now i can be free)
> 
> first things first, there’s a panic attack in this one, please be warned
> 
> hope u enjoy!!

Where the ruins had been a deep and vibrant purple, the marsh was the colour of a bruise. Running water whispered in the background. Around them was a sea of grass that reached up to their waists, soft and pliant and waving. With every step they took mud squelched beneath their feet, doggedly real, and winking spots of light floated up from the grass like bubbles in champagne.

It could have been peaceful.

Dispassionately, Widowmaker surveyed the marsh. Black gashes perforated the landscape, consumed the marsh byte by bite. They were deeply unsettling to look at. The edges of the gashes looked almost...blocky. As if the world was a Jenga tower slowly being deconstructed.

“Wasn’t kidding about you breaking the programme.” Reyes’s voice sounded even more gravelly through the mask. He had put it back on when they left the grillhouse. Now, the skull affected a deliberate boredom. “Where the code’s chewed up it’s just an abyss. Sombra’s making sure you still have somewhere to go.”

_I’m on your side_ , Sombra had said once, low and serious like she never was on missions. _Trust me_. At the time it felt to Widowmaker like a gun pressed to the back of her head. But now that she knew Sombra had gone to such lengths, that she had come here despite the flowers—it sounded less like the click of a slide locking into place, and more like a girl holding out a tattered stuffed bear.

They both came here. As if she wasn’t expendable at all. As if her being alive meant something.

She hadn’t expected them to—

Tracer craned her neck, trying to get a better look at their surroundings. But it was too dark to make anything out. Above them hung mere suggestions of stalactites, teeth half-hidden in the dark, bared in a guillotine grin. Tracer could feel the weight of that smile in her back. “So, uh. Where’re we headed?” she asked, trying not to sound as uneasy as she felt.

“Through the marsh. Follow the path, it’ll take you deeper into the programme. Walk long enough and you’ll hit the core. That’s where everything ends.” Reyes turned to Widowmaker. “When it does, you’ll wake up.

“With the programme torn up like this, expect some technical difficulties. If at any point the lights go out, stop moving. Don’t move until they come back on. Unless the world’s falling to pieces again, don’t reset. Programme’s unstable enough as it is. That means don’t fucking die either, Lacroix.”

The way he said it made Tracer think that maybe he’d heard that conversation in the ruins, when Widowmaker told Tracer to kill her. Like she was talking about someone else. Like she was completely okay with the prospect of—like she was used to—

—yeah. Tracer understood. Completely.

“If everything has gone wrong,” Widowmaker asked, in a very specific tone that took hold of their faces with both hands, turned them towards the black gashes, and demanded _are we even standing in the same room_ , “is it not a better idea to terminate this whole affair?” She waved sarcastically. “ _Et voila._ Problem solved.”

“We could,” Reyes said airily. “But if we do that, you’re probably never waking up again. Your head’s in fucking terrible shape. This programme’s designed to help you build up whatever Talon tore down. Weed out the shit they stuffed in there. But you have to put in the time. You have to get to the end. You have to wake up. That’s your mission.” He began walking back the way they came, black dust already curling around his legs. “I’ll bring up the rear. Make sure nothing’s following you.”

For a moment it looked as if Widowmaker was going to say something. But then her jaw tightened, and she said nothing at all.

“Thanks for the food!” Tracer called, breaking the silence. Her voice pulled gently at Widowmaker. Widowmaker shifted.

“Try not to die," she said at last.

“Whatever.”

Then the black smoke obscured his torso, his arm half-raised in dismissal, and he was gone.

 

*

 

As they walked deeper into the marsh, the damage to the programme became progressively worse. The dark gashes coalesced into stretches, then entire swathes. Every branch in the road they could’ve taken, every other possibility cut off. The tendrils of land that had survived felt like—like veins, or something, like they were standing inside a blood vessel stretched tight over a ballooning blackness. The sound of rushing water grew louder with every step they took, a hundred voices murmuring over one another, each one strangely familiar, each one better ignored. And all the while, teeth grinned at them from above.

Tracer apparently didn’t do a great job of hiding her unease, because it wasn’t long before Widowmaker asked, “What is it?”

“I don’t like this,” Tracer muttered. She tried to block out the water in the background; it made her head hurt. “In fact, I’d go so far as to say I hate it.”

Widowmaker glanced at her. “But you’re smiling.”

“Makes things less scary, doesn’t it?” Then, jokingly: “Works when you’ve got your rifle in my face, anyway.”

Widowmaker knew the way Tracer fought. She could predict, with reasonable accuracy, when a blink was coming. She had counted the seconds in between; she knew how long she had before Tracer winked back into real time and did something either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid. What she couldn’t reliably predict was where Tracer would blink to. Recalls, yes, but blinks? It was why fighting Tracer was so exhilarating. Why Widowmaker enjoyed every rooftop scrap, every altercation.

Widowmaker knew exactly what it looked like when Tracer was about to blink away. It did not look much different from this. It reminded her of Tracer in the ruins, calling time her best friend.

Violence was an art, a dance. Widowmaker had fought Tracer long enough that she knew without thinking what the next steps were. This was not the same dance, but the steps were not so different.

It was for her to be on edge. Not Tracer.

“And here I thought you were just happy to see me,” Widowmaker purred. “Or that you had a death wish.”

“Aw, give yourself some credit, love. You’re good company! I wouldn’t want just anyone to kick my head in, you know. I’ve got standards!”

“I’m glad,” Widowmaker said dryly. “I was beginning to worry.”

“Oi!” But Tracer was laughing, loud and bright and startled. Something like satisfaction bloomed in Widowmaker’s chest. “Y’know, I thought you’d be a cheeky bitch when I finally got you to start talking to me. Somehow it’s even better than I imagined.”

Widowmaker smirked. Deliberately, with the same inflections Tracer used in the ruins: “You’ve been fantasising about me, _chérie_?”

“Just about talking to you, love.“

Widowmaker blinked. “You talked to me.” Unless she dreamt all of that, too.

“Nah, I talked at you. All kinds of rubbish, anything that popped into my head. Even had a system going! Five points for an eyeroll, ten for that thing you do with your eyebrows, twenty for when you said something back. Got to two hundred and eighty-five! I’m a big fan of my own voice and all, but it gets old after a while.” The smile dimmed. “You’ll have to take my word for it.” The smile returned with a vengeance. Widowmaker could almost see blue light trailing the upward tilt of her lips. “Eh, you probably tuned out all that waffle, anyway.”

What did waffles have to do with anything? “I do not _tune out_. Not even the finer points of your weekly shopping list. Is Doctor Ziegler aware of how much sugar you consume?” Widowmaker raised her voice. It echoed through the marsh. “Because I assure you, if I do not kill her first, the sugar will.”

“Don’t listen to her!” Then, elbowing Widowmaker hard in the ribs, Tracer hissed, “Don’t do this to me, love, come on.”

Widowmaker gave her the most unimpressed look she could muster. “Then stop taking four sugars with your tea.”

“Aw, you remembered—no! No, you can’t distract me! _I_ distract _you_ , not the other way round. That’s our thing!”

“Then you will just have to try harder, _chérie_. A little competition—“

_—ne there?_

Widowmaker stilled; the rest of that sentence died on her tongue. Every line of her body sharpened with intent. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Confused, Tracer slowed, and listened hard. The grass was silent. The winking lights faded soundlessly as they ceased all movement. There was nothing but the white noise of rushing water.

— _hear me?_

A familiar cold dripped down Tracer’s spine.

“That’s—that’s my voice.” She turned, trying to figure out where it’d come from. Trying her best not to be freaked out. “Why’s my voice—what’s going on?”

_What’s going on?_ echoed the other Tracer, panicked, scared. _Hello? Can anyone hear me?_

Widowmaker listened. Then, with Tracer trailing closely behind her, she turned and followed the sound through the grass. The rustling grass parted easily beneath her hands, breathed little orbs of light at her face. When the spots in her vision cleared, what she saw made her blood run colder than it already did. Widowmaker yanked the rifle off her back with one hand and raised the other to stop Tracer from advancing. Tracer ran right into her.

“What is it?” Tracer asked, alarm muffled by the tensed muscles in Widowmaker’s back. Without waiting for a response she went on her tiptoes to see, hands on Widowmaker’s shoulder and upper arm for balance.

Waving at them from a gap in the grass was a flower.

It was immediately obvious that this flower was different from the ones in the cave and ruins. Those had been picture-perfect, perfectly plausible; green stems, tapering green leaves, yellow petals. But this flower—it looked _warped_. Alien. It had no leaves. It was impossibly spindly, the stem so thin that it threatened to snap under the weight of its own drooping petals. And it was completely blue. Everything from its petals to its leafless stem was so blue that it almost glowed.

Something about it felt so familiar—

Tracer looked down at the accelerator strapped to her chest, the electric blue light spilling from its core, and thought, _Oh_.

The flower bowed. Its petals shivered and slowly unfurled. Her voice drifted out with the movement.

_Hello? I—I don’t know what’s wrong, the matrix—is anyone there?_

The words rang loud and clear across the marsh. Somewhere far away, another Tracer answered—and another, and another, and another, until the marsh was alive with her voice.

 

_Am I dead? ...Could somebody please just tell me?_

 

_You can’t hold me here. I want a lawyer._

 

_Hey! Hey, Winston! Can you see me?_

 

 

 

_I—I can’t feel my fingers._

 

 

 

  _What do you call a dinosaur with one eye? A do-you-think-he-saurus!_

 

_Knock knock. Who’s there? Lettuce. Lettuce who? Lettuce in, it’s freezing out here!_

 

_Your trial version of death has expired. Please buy the full version at—_

  

_Knock knock. Who’s there? Lena. Lena who?_

 

_Knock knock. Who’s there? Anyone? Please?_

 

 

 

_I want to go home. Please, I just want to go_ home—

 

It felt like Tracer had punched her in the stomach. Like Widowmaker had unwittingly walked into a field full of landmines she had no idea how to even begin to navigate. She only knew that she wasn't supposed to be here, wasn't supposed to hear any of this. The desperation leaking through the jokes—as if she had been listening for laughter, for someone who could hear—

“Nice try,” Tracer called. She looked a little shaken, but even if the smile was a little off, it was still there. “Can’t get into my head with that one! It’s my bedtime routine!”

“Tracer,” Widowmaker began, but Tracer cut her off.

“‘Course Reyes gets burgers and fries, and I get this. Was hoping for a good chippy. Well, that’s just how it is.” Tracer tugged at Widowmaker’s arm, her grip a little too tight, her movements a little too jerky. It was like watching a lighthouse begin its slow collapse. “Come on, love, let’s get out of here.”

The world flickered. Briefly, as if Widowmaker had blinked without closing her eyes. In the space between light and dark, the grass shuddered and disappeared, revealing hundreds of echo flowers formerly hidden in its depths. Every single one was swivelled around on its stem, contorted like a puppet, staring directly at them.

The world flickered again. Once, twice, circuit breakers tripping. Then, without any warning, it _twisted_. Colours inverted themselves. The green they stood on turned black; the black chasms in the landscape turned a blinding electric blue. The rushing water stuttered, then filtered back in, this time clear and close and all around. They were no longer standing in the marsh. They were standing in the capillaries of a vast lake. The water was a radioactive cyan.

“ _Jesus Christ_.” Tracer’s voice was strangled. “I didn’t mean try again! It’s not a bloody competition!”

The surface of the lake rippled and swelled.

In this world there was no time to waste lingering on horror; Widowmaker had learned that years ago. But Tracer was new to this. She did not know to shoot first and shoot later and shoot again until every possible threat was dead. No matter; Widowmaker would fight enough for both of them. Breathing carefully even, she raised the rifle and took aim, waiting for her shot.

It rose from the blue like a half-consumed ghost. It was difficult to make out clearly—the blue was somehow simultaneously translucent and opaque, a liquid two-way glass that had been damaged on one side—but Widowmaker knew who it was like she knew her own name. There, floating just beneath the electric blue, mouth slightly open, eyes wide and unseeing, was Tracer.

The real Tracer stumbled back at once, colliding with Widowmaker’s front. Reflexively Widowmaker steadied her—she could feel the too-quick rise and fall of Tracer’s breathing under her hand. It only added to the horror of the moment, of the body in the lake. Its frozen hands looked like they were clawing at the underside of the surface. It was more body parts than body. It looked disjointed, like the blue had disarticulated it, a puppet waiting to be assembled—

“All right,” Tracer said hoarsely. “All right, so we’re doing this now.”

Widowmaker tore her eyes away, looked down at the real Tracer. She was very pale, bent slightly at the waist, breathing shallow.

She had to get Tracer out of here.

“No.” Widowmaker’s voice was sharp with determination. “We are leaving.”

The words filtered through the static in Tracer’s head. Her lip trembled, then she opened her mouth to say something—she didn’t know what, she didn’t know how her voice was going to sound like—

The light flickered, rapidly and growing faster. Widowmaker shoved the dizziness aside and, ignoring how the world seemed to swim beneath her feet, pulled Tracer by the elbow away from the water.

Then with a roar of fractured static, the lights went out.

THe dark pressed in on Widowmaker like a living thing. Obliterated every colour, every sensation. There was no telling which way was up or down or left or right, or even if there were still such things in this space. Widowmaker forced herself to hold still, the remembered warning from Reyes louder than the instinct to run.

She couldn’t see. She couldn’t feel Tracer anymore.

Widowmaker ruthlessly quelled the panic, and waited for the world to come back online.

When the lights finally whirred back to life after—minutes? hours? days?—Widowmaker found herself once again standing in the marsh, up to her waist in velvety grass. Her hand closed around empty air. Tracer had vanished.

“Tracer?” Widowmaker turned, looking for her. It was darker now, colder somehow without the lights that streamed from their footsteps. The sound of rushing water had evaporated into nothingness, leaving an oily silence behind. “Tracer!”

But no one answered. No one was there.

 

*

 

Somewhere in the dark, Tracer sat with her head between her knees, trying to breathe. 

Where was she?

She could feel her heartbeat in her ears. Too fast. Too fast. Her hands and feet were numb and cold. Her head was heavy and full of static, like it would fall off if she moved wrong.

She’d known this was coming since the ruins, hadn’t she? Wasn't like it came out of the blue—

— _out of the blue_. A breath of laughter escaped her. It sounded more like a sob. Tracer squeezed her eyes tightly shut and gulped in mouthfuls of air.

...How long had she been here? Minutes? Hours? Days?

A year?

It was getting harder to breathe.

Was it because of the tightness in her chest? Or was it because the straps of the chronal accelerator were biting into her?

(She couldn’t remember what it had been like before her life was chained to this machine. Even in her dreams the chronal accelerator was always there. And when it wasn’t—)

Tracer tried to breathe. It didn’t really work.

Where was Widowmaker? Was she all right? 

Distantly, she was aware that she was shaking. 

She probably needed to leave. Wasn't any use like this. She needed—

_(I just want to go home)_

“Winston,” she said to her knees. Her voice wasn’t doing so hot, and it was hard to talk when it felt like maybe she was dying, but she tried her best to get her mouth to stop shaking and form the words. “I know I said I—wouldn’t need that—that emergency exit. I—I changed my mind. Can you—get me out? Please?”

She waited. Minutes, hours, days. But nothing happened.

“Winston?” Her voice cracked. “Can you hear me?”

Nobody answered. Nobody came.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im sorry tracer
> 
> as usual please let me know what you thought!! i always enjoy hearing from u guys, u all help me through the rough days so much i wish i could hug all of u through this screen. thank you to everyone who has supported this fic and left kudos and such lovely and thoughtful comments even when i stopped updating for like a month probably more!! i’ll do my best to get the next one ready in two weeks max (pls god pls), and this will be updated on wednesdays. see u all in the next one!!


	8. the undying

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guess who

“Tracer!” Widowmaker’s voice ricocheted sharply through the marsh. She stilled, strained to hear—but there was nothing. Not even a whispering flower. It was just her, alone in a tattered marsh, where the darkness grew more and more palpable with every passing second.

Her fingers were cramping from how tightly she was holding her rifle. With effort, she forced them to relax. The tightness in her chest grew proportionately worse. Widowmaker scanned her surroundings for any sign of Tracer, but there was nothing. The indistinct stalactites from before were much more defined now. As if they’d dripped down and pressed into her space, or the darkness had pulled back its lips. An open jaw slowly closing, or an unnerving smile. Neither was particularly appealing.

Then Widowmaker looked down, and her chest twisted impossibly tighter.

There was now only one set of tracks through the grass. 

Hers.

Tracer’s tracks were gone.

Erased. Excised. Expunged. As if Widowmaker had dreamed the whole thing. As if Tracer had never been here at all.

Ridiculous. _R_ _idiculous_. Golden flowers, a dummy, a house fracturing itself to death—all of that, and it was _this_ that distressed her, that truly made her afraid—

Every instinct Widowmaker had screamed at her to _run._ Leave Tracer behind. The girl was an able fighter, yes, but now that the programme had her, she had become a liability. It made no tactical sense to look for her. None. It wasn't worth the risk, and it was a waste of time. How long did she have before the golden flowers caught up?

The girl might not even be here anymore. If Widowmaker had known that she needed to leave that lake, wouldn’t her friends on the outside have known, too? Possibly they had already extracted her from the programme. Perhaps this was nothing more sinister than how the girl had vanished mid-conversation in the cave. Maybe she was awake now, safe, and Widowmaker was wasting her time.

But if Overwatch was going to pull the girl from the programme, wouldn’t they have done it the moment the echo flowers started speaking with her voice? Wouldn’t they have done it the moment the lake flickered into being? So why hadn’t they?

And the lake. The _lake_ , Widowmaker couldn't—

It hadn't been so different from the ruins, had it? Tracer had her own flowers. Her own dummy. Where Widowmaker had left hers lying in a pool of red blood, Tracer’s had been floating in a lake of radioactive cyan. And if that wasn't the most—

The girl—no. No,  _Tracer_ had gone to the ruins just to sit with her in a pool of blood. The orange of her leggings had turned a splotchy red. The dummy had stared at her with dead glass eyes. The roots had slowly pulled the world apart. But despite everything. Tracer had stayed. Despite everything, Tracer had treated her like she was a person. Not Talon’s best toy, but someone real.

Widowmaker had listened to the echo flowers speak with Tracer’s voice. She had seen the dismembered body in the lake. And she had watched Tracer try not to listen, try not to see, and fail at both.

Determination flared, bright and burning.

_I won't leave you alone in the dark._

Widowmaker let out a slow breath. Considered her options.

She could turn back and find Reyes for backup. Two people would expedite the search, after all. But she didn’t know how long she had before the golden flowers caught up, and it was more than likely that he had moved on, too. Sombra was—somewhere. No, for the time being, she was on her own.

The lake was her best bet. She hadn’t seen anything like it on the way here, which meant that it was likely somewhere deeper in the programme. With any luck, she would find Tracer there.

Filled with determination, Widowmaker pushed onward, listening all the while for Tracer’s voice.

 

*

 

It wasn’t long before Widowmaker reached the end of the marsh. The grass just _ended._ Dropped off into the same terminal blackness that had consumed most of the marsh, like it had exhausted all of its strength getting her this far. It would have been the end of the path, if it hadn’t been for the bridge.

It was perhaps a slight exaggeration to call it a bridge. There were no railings, no supporting beams, just wooden planks laid one after another, leading off into the dark. The bare essentials, floating on a silent black sea. Widowmaker almost expected the planks to sink beneath her weight, and the liquid black to come oozing out from the gaps between. But the bridge held firm. That was enough. Widowmaker set off at a jog. Time was of the essence.

She should do something about Sombra after all of this was over. Maybe the next time that brat made her sit through a three-hour-long movie she didn’t care about, she wouldn’t even complain.

There was still no sign of Tracer. The tightness in her chest was starting to get—annoying.

The only sound was the hollow tap of her heels against the bridge. Widowmaker had forgotten how _quiet_ it could get inside her head. She’d grown too used too quickly to Tracer next to her, chattering away about anything and everything. It was aggravating. She’d been just fine on her own, there was no reason—

It helped, in a way. It was easier to listen for Tracer.

Mostly, though—she just felt alone.

Widowmaker kept going.

A sound slithered in and out of the silence. A series of sub-bass bursts. There, and not there, and there again. Widowmaker kept walking like nothing was out of the ordinary. Surreptitiously, she adjusted her grip on her rifle. Scanned the surroundings as much as she could without giving herself away, but the darkness was so gelatinous that she couldn’t see anything but the short length of bridge in front of her. Now more than ever she longed for the weight of her visor. Her forehead felt too light, too exposed without it. An open target.

The sound was moving, Widowmaker realised. Shifting. Looking for a better angle.

Widowmaker broke into a run.

A second later, a dull boom split the air, a distant firecracker going off. The space where she’d been seconds ago erupted in a shower of scalding shrapnel and white fire. Widowmaker looked back in shock—the entire _section_ of bridge had been blown to pieces, wooden fragments suspended eerily in the liquid dark like they didn’t know how to fall—before the cool composure that cemented her as one of Talon’s best kicked in, and she began to sprint.

More concussive blasts cracked through the air. As the explosions rapidly consumed the bridge and everything melted into stinging shrapnel, Widowmaker brought her arms up, shielded her eyes as best as she could. Somehow she managed to dodge the worst of it, but there were so many that it was impossible for her to outrun them all. The force of the next explosion knocked her off her feet, sent her sprawling across the bridge. Widowmaker barely managed to curl up in time and avoid slamming her head into the ground, but the moment she hit the floor she knew it was over.

The next barrage found its mark. Widowmaker felt the searing heat first, then a terrible ripping pain as the blast tore her apart. She didn’t even have time to scream.

 

*

 

She jerked back into being with a strangled gasp. The programme groaned with the strain of her death. A wave of nausea slammed into her with the force of a truck. Breathing hard, Widowmaker squeezed her eyes shut and fought to stay on her feet. She didn’t _have time for this._ Already she could hear the short explosive bursts of air moving somewhere above, the brisk click of ammunition being reloaded—

Ignoring the way her stomach was lurching, Widowmaker ran _._

She couldn’t even see what was killing her. She could only run. Widowmaker hated every second of it. An enemy that she could see, she could fight, and if she could fight, she could win—

The sub-bass thrum was directly overhead now. Widowmaker looked up just in time to see a salvo of missiles streaking through the air, each one trailing a thin ribbon of smoke. Her eyes widened.

Missiles. _Rockets._

All at once the pieces slid into place. Rockets. The intermittent bursts of air—hover jets. A metallic blue raptor in her crosshairs—

 _I see,_ Widowmaker thought. Then: _Putain de bordel de merde._

The missiles screamed past her. The smoke got into her eyes. Stung them closed. Then came the excruciating pain, and for the second time on that bridge, Widowmaker died.

 

*

 

She really was just like her mother. The heroine who never gave up.

Widowmaker had lost count how many times she’d died. The bridge was swaying now, groaning under the near-continuous salvo of rockets. Most of it had been destroyed. She didn't know how it was still holding together. It wouldn’t be long now. If the rockets didn’t get her first, the bridge would.

She’d fought. Fired back several times. Aimed based on sound alone. Even stood her ground as rockets rained from above, followed the smoke back to the source. Widowmaker had managed to clip her a few times, but her target learned to always keep moving, and Widowmaker couldn’t _see._

So she kept running. She ran and ran until there was nowhere left to run.

Widowmaker stood, panting, at the end of the bridge. Her body felt like it was splitting apart. Like at any moment it would shatter into a million pieces. But inside her burned a feeling that eluded description. A feeling that wouldn’t let her die.

The wooden planks creaked ominously. Gave way. Mechanically, Widowmaker backed away as the last few planks fell noiselessly into the liquid dark. She couldn’t even muster up alarm. There was no space left inside her for anything other than the bone-deep exhaustion that came from dying over and over and over again.

What about the others? Reaper, Sombra, Tracer? What did it mean for them that she had reset so many times?

Air hissed behind her, and a heavy weight dropped onto the bridge. The bridge shuddered.

Widowmaker was so _tired._

“For what it’s worth,” Pharah said quietly, “I’m not enjoying this as much as I thought I would.”

A dark laugh bubbled out of Widowmaker. “What a shame.” She turned and met Pharah’s eyes. Then her eyes slid down to Pharah’s feet. They were clad in blue metal armour. Her eyes slid back up. “I take it that Overwatch has come to its senses.”

Pharah said nothing. Her face was stony, carefully cool and detached. Widowmaker could respect that.

“A little late, isn’t it? But I’m not surprised.” Widowmaker tilted her head. “It’s fitting that you are my executioner. Your mother would be proud—”

“This is not about my mother,” Pharah cut in strongly. Her voice was pressed into calmness. “This is about Lena.”

Widowmaker’s stare sharpened.

“We lost visual of her after the lake. So Winston tried to extract her from the programme. There’s just one problem—it won’t let her go.” Pharah’s voice hardened. “The code is a mess. We had to call in Zenyatta. You remember him, don’t you? He volunteered his help. It took a while, but we figured it out. It’s you. You’re the reason why Lena’s stuck here. Your determination. Your _saves._ You saved her into the programme. You locked her in here with you.”

Widowmaker’s breathing turned funny for a moment. Pharah didn’t notice.

“There’s a way around it, though. Whenever you die, there’s a small window between your death and your reload. A small window where you’re fumbling for a grip on this world. In that window, your save isn’t active. That’s the only time we have to loosen Lena from this place. That’s why I’m here. I’ll kill you as many times as it takes to save her.”

The jump jets flared to life. Pharah hovered a few metres off the ground.

“It’s fitting, don’t you think? After everything you’ve done.”

The compartments in the suit’s thighs and shoulders hissed open.

“So it’d be great if you could stop being so damn resilient and just die already.”

It would be easy to take Pharah out now. At this distance she was no longer protected by the darkness. She was exposed. 

Perhaps a bullet through the eye. Like mother, like daughter. Complete the set.

Widowmaker lowered her rifle.

The barrage of rockets arced towards her, each trailing an erratic hyperbola of smoke. The initial slew of missiles hit the bridge, detonated in rapid pulses of bursting fire. There was a low tortured screech of tearing wood as the bridge finally, finally buckled. 

Widowmaker fell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i mean...spear of justice?? JUSTICE???? was there anyone else who could be undyne?????
> 
> idk how i feel abt this chapter tbh im not entirely satisfied but oK just gonna put it up anyway ヾ( `ー´)シφ__ 
> 
> as usual please let me know what you thought! u guys keep me going ♡

**Author's Note:**

> hope u enjoyed!! my first time posting anything haha scary um there might be more in the future depending on if anyone's interested
> 
> let me know what you thought


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